The Storm of the Century
by I'm All Teeth
Summary: After getting dragged even farther back in time, Kagome can't get back again. To make matters even worse, the only person in this time who she knows doesn't seem to have any interest in helping her get back. In fact, if he has his way, she'll never leave at all. But when events take a turn for the disastrous, it'll take all their collective skill to make things right. SKW2017
1. Tanabata - The Stars, Departing

**The Storm of the Century**

 **A/N:** This is a short work written for SessKag Week 2017. Each chapter will fit the theme of the day, some more loosely than others. The more you know about Japan in the summer time, the more sense they'll all make. For the extra-vague ones, I'll have a brief author's note explaining what they mean. If you've got a question or just want to talk (or scream at each other about how awesome SessKag is as a pairing), hit me up. I'm all over the internet and you can find several ways to contact me on my "About" page. :)

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Inuyasha. Rumiko Takahashi does.

"You'll understand why storms are named after people."  
\- F. Scott Fitzgerald, _The Beautiful and the Damned_

 **Chapter 1: Tanabata – The Stars, Departing**

* * *

"Oh come _on_!" she whines and fumbles her yellow backpack over her shoulders. The clouds that have been threatening rain all day finally open up and it begins to pour. Kagome is not happy about it but she is prepared for it. Kagome is prepared for just about every eventuality—even some that aren't as common as a rainstorm in Edo in late June—and this is why, two minutes later, she's _still_ looking for her umbrella.

Everything about this is familiar. She's lived in Japan for eighteen years and two months—which is her entire life, in case anyone is wondering.

That doesn't stop it from being really, really inconvenient.

"Today is just not my day," she sighs and it feels like the understatement of the year.

She knows it's Shippo running toward her without even looking up. It's half pattern recognition and half the sound of his small feet rustling in the damp grass. When the rain suddenly stops falling on half of her head and she looks around, she isn't surprised to see it's a large leaf held in his small hands. He's got to stand on the very tips of his tiny paws to reach high enough and he's getting wet in the process, but he doesn't scamper up onto her shoulder like he normally would in a typical attempt to keep her dry. She loves him for remembering.

"Shippo, go back to the others," she says, turning to her pack with renewed determination. "I'll be fine. I know it's in here somewhere."

"Kagome, you're getting soaked out here and Miroku says that we'll be stuck in the woods for the night if we don't make it back to Kaede's by sunset and now it's raining and Sango says that's gonna make visibility even worse and she doesn't know if we should keep going at all since demons might start coming after us and," she looks up from her packing to see his small chin begin to wobble, but he bravely squints his eyes to keep the tears from falling, "And Inuyasha still hasn't woken up," he concludes with all the bravery a little boy can muster. She loves him for this, too.

"It's going to be ok, Shippo," she says as reassuringly as she can while digging through her pack like a hungry raccoon, "Inuyasha just had a hard day. Heck, we _all_ had a hard day, but it's going to be ok." She shoots him a smile, "Besides, I know it's in here—AH–HA!" She crows and holds the pink and purple umbrella up like a trophy. "I knew it was in here!"

"Kagome-chan!" Calls Sango from the tree line, where the forest meets the grassy field they've been walking through for hours now, "Maybe you can do that while we travel?"

"Oh. Right," she mumbles sheepishly. "Good call."

Shippo helps her repack her things. When she's all ready to go, he scampers ahead and she awkwardly slings her pack over her good shoulder while simultaneously trying to open the umbrella. Once she's managed to figure that out, she heads toward the trees too.

"Thanks for waiting, guys!" She chirps and smiles between Miroku and Sango.

"Would you like to ride on Kirara, Kagome-sama? I'm sure Inuyasha wouldn't mind travelling with two beautiful ladies instead of one," says Miroku. Kagome isn't sure how he can hit on both of them at once right now, but the utter normalcy of it makes the day a little less awful and she loves him for trying. His wind tunnel had pulled in a good number of saimyoshou today, but he came-to only a few minutes after Naraku collected his remaining pieces and fled thanks to Kagome's careful ministrations of medication from her time. After that, he was a flurry of helpful hands. He helped Kagome bandage and poultice everyone's injuries and then he kept watch while Kagome did her sacred duty. She loves how reliable he is.

But no one laughs and no one even has the energy to tell him off right now. Instead, four pairs of eyes swing toward the firecat and the half-demon slung sideways across her back. Even Kirara turns her head to look at her unconscious passenger. His chest rises and falls with his steady breaths and the bleeding stopped hours ago, but they're all on edge anyway.

"Oh no," she says and shakes her head. Her hairs sticks to the sides of her face. "This is nothing! Sango should have enough room to stretch out!"

"But your shoulder," says Sango, whose face is one enormous bruise and who cannot take a breath without wincing. Even now, she's sacrificing herself to save everyone. When she speaks, her voice is hoarse from all the screaming she did earlier, all of her calling out for Kohaku, but even with the shard removed and his miraculous survival thanks to Kikyo, Kohaku still walked away from his older sister. Sango chased him until he disappeared into the mist and even then she screamed his name until her voice broke and she passed out from the pain. Two hours later, she is as much herself as she has always been and Kagome isn't sure if she loves Sango more for her loyalty or her endurance.

"My shoulder is _fine_ , Sango," she says even though the pain where Naraku's tentacle went through her arm is a constant thrumming and she's already lamenting how awful she just _knows_ the scar will look when she wears a swimsuit. But what difference will one more scar make, anyway? And this one would always be a reminder of the victory they had today, so she'd be sure to wear it proudly. Someday. Or maybe she'd just wear her hair down and hope no one asks about it. But it's not like she wears a ton of bathing suits these days anyway.

And maybe it's a sign of how hurt and tired she is that Sango doesn't argue anymore. She just clambers up onto Kirara behind Inuyasha. Kirara noses Sango's leg once in a comforting gesture and then leaps into the air. She flies low, only a short distance in front of where Miroku and Kagome trudge along in tired silence, Shippo perched on Miroku's shoulder. This is a concession for her human companions and Kagome loves Kirara for her thoughtfulness.

As they walk and the gray day darkens even more, Kagome keeps her eyes fixed on the red of Inuyasha's haori. She imagines what it would be like if he was awake right now. She's known him for just over four years now, and so she's got a lot of memories with which to paint herself a picture. She can see it so clearly: His exasperated, worried expression as he urges them to walk faster. The rough scrape of his claws against her tattered jeans as he pulls her onto his back—although he'd be very careful not to aggravate her hurt shoulder. At dark—because it's very nearly dark now—he'd set her down and disappear into the woods for twenty minutes or so while they set up camp. When he'd come back, he'd have fish or boar or deer and maybe even directions to the nearest hot spring. And he would argue with Shippo while they ate dinner and it would be as close as they'd ever come to peace. She loves Inuyasha for all of his coarse kindness; for the hesitant push and pull of scared and sacred friendship.

Kagome loves all of her friends so much. Her love for each of them is unique, tailored over years and adventures to fit them perfectly and she's grown so used to and fond of their company that she can't imagine a day passing without it. She'd sooner go without eating or breathing. She touches the completed jewel around her neck. She's still not used to the weight of it like this, but its pure glow warms her fingers.

It's been a long time since she's last talked with Inuyasha about what will happen to the jewel now. She doesn't think he wants to become a full demon anymore—not since all that business with him not controlling his demonic blood a few years ago—but she hasn't gotten verbal confirmation on that yet. Not, of course, that she has any idea what to do with it. She'd been vaguely planning on bringing Kohaku back to life or something, but Kikyo managed to do that already, so she can't think of another wish that might be pure enough. Maybe she'll wish Kikyo back to life again. It would make Inuyasha so happy. But she doesn't know if Kikyo would like that. Or Inuyasha. _Besides, they've been dancing around each other for so many years at this point that they might need several lifetimes to sort all their problems out. If I turn her back into a mortal, they might never figure it out!_

The thought is so strange that she smiles to herself.

The smile fades as she wonders what Inuyasha will do when he wakes up and learns that they've completed the jewel. Kouga had given them his shards a few days ago but, until they'd found Naraku's castle this morning, their share of the jewel had been a tiny sliver. It seemed almost unreal that it was done. Only it wasn't really done at all. Even after Kagome had snatched the jewel (at which point he'd skewered her like a teenage shish-kebab), Naraku had been unimaginably powerful. If it hadn't been for Sesshoumaru's last-minute appearance, they might not have won at all. As it was, Naraku had gathered his incarnations and his still-wriggling pieces and disappeared in a cloud of purple miasma.

She'd tried to thank Sesshoumaru, of course, but he stared through her like she was nothing but a ghost and then turned and walked away without a word. Her eyes narrow and her lips purse. _That_ had been frustrating, but she liked to think that after four years of dealing with Inuyasha's icy older brother she was starting to get used to it. It wasn't true, of course. Every time he has snubbed her or rescued her only to walk away without accepting her sincerest thanks, a little piece of her wanted to grab him by his broad shoulders and shake some sense into him. _The problem_ , she muses, _is that he never seems to_ see _me. It's like he doesn't even want to waste the energy of looking at a pathetic human like me. But he travels with Rin! Who's the sweetest ever! How does_ that _make any sense!?_

She huffs aloud and kicks a clump of dirt.

"What troubles are on your mind, Kagome-sama?" Miroku's concerned voice floats into her reverie. She glances at him. Shippo is draped across his shoulders, fast asleep.

"Oh, no troubles," she says and flashes him a smile. "Just thinking about stuff. Why? Do I seem worried?"

"You've been glaring at Inuyasha for some time now, and now you've started attacking the foliage."

"Oh, yeah," she mumbles sheepishly. And then, because half the fun of having friends is sharing thoughts and concerns, "I was just thinking about Inuyasha," she says.

Miroku's eyes slant toward her now. He's got a look on his face that she recognizes. It says, in no uncertain terms, _Not this again_.

"Not like _that_ ," she assures quickly—maybe too quickly—and then, before he can question her, she explains "I'm worried about what he'll say about the jewel."

"You think that he still wants to become a full demon, Kagome-sama?" Miroku sounds surprised, but it might just be an act. It's hard to tell with him.

She doesn't worry about his genuineness too much. It's nice enough to have something to talk about, even if neither of them really means it. So she purses her lips again and says darkly, "I don't know for certain, but what I _do_ know is that, if he _does_ try anything, I'm going to S-I-T him into next Tuesday." She doesn't mean it and they both know it. She hasn't _sat_ Inuyasha in more than a year and she doesn't plan to start again now, but Miroku's lips quirk up in a smile, so it's done its job anyway.

* * *

The rain begins to fall on Sesshoumaru ten minutes after it starts falling on Kagome. He stares up at the sky. If he were the type to show emotion on his face (which he isn't), he would be glaring. He knew the rain was coming, of course; he smelled the shape of the storm an hour ago. But that doesn't mean he likes it.

When the thunder rolls like a hungry beast, it reminds him of things he'd rather leave buried in the caves at the edges of his memory. When the lightning draws its sword across the heavens, he thinks of eyes that flash with anger. When the rain falls, he wonders if perhaps he trusted the wrong magician in the beginning or at the end. He wonders how much he owes her memory.

"Sesshoumaru-sama's mad at the sky!" Rin whispers.

"Rin! You stupid girl!" snaps Jaken, waving his staff under Sesshoumaru's nose as he turns his ire on the little girl, "Sesshoumaru-sama is merely ascertaining…information! Yes! Ascertaining valuable information from the heavens. But a human like you would _never_ understand something like that!"

"Eeeeeh, Jaken-sama is so smart!" Coos the girl.

He stares down at his girl, who is staring admiringly at his retainer. They both follow wherever he leads without question and, in return, he never leads them astray. They are both living proof that he bears his responsibilities well; that he never shirks his burdens.

"Indeed, but no one is as smart as Sesshoumaru-sama!"

"Yes! Yes, Jaken-sama! Sesshoumaru is so great!"

"Even the heavens tremble when he is angry with them!"

"Is that why they're leaking now?"

"Yes, Rin! They are soiling themselves in fear of Sesshoumaru-sama's wrath!"

"Eeeeh! The sky is peeing on us? Is that why it's so warm? Rin just thought that was because it's summer! Jaken-sama knows everything!"

No, he never shirks his burdens. Even when they become tiresome.

"Rin, Jaken. Come," he says and begins to walk toward the dark trees.

* * *

When Kagome wakes up in the morning, her hand closes around the jewel hung like a pendant around her neck. She's just making sure it's still there. Its presence is strangely comforting. And then she notices the voices.

"I cannot _believe_ you fell asleep," hisses Sango. She's clearly angry, but it's not unusual for Sango to be a little unpleasant first thing in the morning, so Kagome isn't overly concerned.

"Forgive me, Sango, my beautiful," wheedles Miroku's voice. "Inuyasha generally takes third shift."

"I'd have done it. But, no! 'Go to sleep,' you said. 'You need your rest,' you said. And why should I forgive you? What would you have done if we'd been attacked in the night? We'd all have died in our sleep because _you_ couldn't be trusted to stay awake for a few hours!"

Miroku, who also knows that Sango isn't a morning person, doesn't sound too concerned. "But we weren't attacked, were we?"

"No thanks to you," is the grouchy reply.

"Yes, that's what's worrying me," muses Miroku, suddenly serious. As if on cue, thunder rolls outside.

His change in demeanor catches Kagome's interest and worry prickles against the palms of her hands, making them itch. Sango appears to notice it too because she says, "What is?" without any of her aforementioned ire.

"We haven't been attacked. By anything. We're carrying more of the Shikon no Tama than we've ever had and yet not a single demon has come after us."

In the quiet that follows this, Kagome notices the chirp of dozens of unseen birds, all celebrating the morning, despite the continued pitter-patter of rain outside the cave they've taken refuge in.

"It could be that Naraku's stench has scared them all away," says Sango at last, although it doesn't sound like she believes it. "Or maybe this storm. Nothing wants to be out in rain like this. I'm sure the little stream we passed yesterday is flooded."

"Perhaps," says Miroku, and it doesn't sound like he believes it, either. "I—,"

A soft moaning sound from one corner of the cave cuts their conversation short.

"Christ on a fucking cracker," moans Inuyasha, "Will you two stop with all that damn noise?"

And Kagome forgets that she's pretending to be asleep. "Inuyasha!" she says, and in a flash she's out of her sleeping bag and across the cave.

"Damn it, wench!" Inuyasha complains, even though his ears perk up at the sound of her voice, "Not you too!"

* * *

He could tell himself that it is only because his brother's companions are in his lands that he does it. He could tell himself that it is not because he is eager to see finished what she started so many years ago. He could tell himself that he doesn't think about her when the summer rains come and paint the world in gray and brown.

But he's never been a very good liar, so he doesn't bother.

Instead, his whip lashes out and slices through the second lizard demon. It hisses, but Sesshoumaru has killed enough of these creatures by now to know that it's only the sound of air escaping useless lungs. It hits the ground in chunks and he turns, elegant as a dancer, and catches a third length-wise across its ugly face.

He hates this time of year. He hates the sense of obligation to a person and a cause that do not—have never—concerned him. This girl is nothing like her predecessor. They are so different that it is impossible to compare them, so he doesn't even bother.

The wind howls around him like a mother who's lost her pup. Lightning illuminates the forest, the eyes from the shadows. His whip flashes out at the demon he glimpsed between the trees, trying to slink past where he has stationed himself as guard.

But he still thinks about her sometimes, on long hot days when the rain starts to fall. He thinks about how long ago it happened and how strange it is that he has hardly aged at all and she is dead and gone. More dust than bones by now. More history than memory. He wonders if she ever thought of him, in the years before her death. He wonders how she remembered him.

"Sesshoumaru-sama is so strong!" Chirps Rin from the tree when he's left them.

"Shut your mouth, Rin!" Snaps Jaken, "Sesshoumaru-sama needs to concentrate!"

"Eeeeh! But I thought you said he could defeat low-level demons like that with his eyes closed!"

* * *

No one realizes it, but the jewel has awakened something that's been on the edge of things since the very beginning. In the well, caught between times, a thorax twitches.

* * *

"I still can't get over seeing you like that," Grouses Inuyasha. "It's just creepy."

"I told you already," she says, but she's smiling so he knows she isn't mad, "My normal outfit was ruined after the fight and all of my spare things are still soaked. I'm not going to wear wet clothes just because you think it makes me look a little bit like Kikyo. It was really nice of Kaede to lend this stuff to me." She tugs on the side of her red hakama. They really _were_ comfortable. If they weren't such a pain to wash and if they didn't make her look so much like Kikyo (and if they came in other, more interesting colors) she might consider wearing them more often.

His ears twitch in agitation. "It's still weird." He's got her bag slung over one shoulder. Despite the fact that his injuries were so much worse than hers, he'd still insisted on carrying it to the well for her. _Super demon healing, remember?_ He'd said. _Three days is plenty of time to be fighting fit._ And he'd seemed so glad to be useful that she didn't have the heart to tell him that the wound on his back had already bled through its bandage.

Kagome sighs and rolled her eyes. "Well you'll only have to deal with it for a couple more minutes," she says. "Then I'll be out of your hair for a whole week."

"Damn it, Kagome, you know I didn't mean it like that," he looks at her shyly, despite the brusqueness of his tone, but one look at her smile is all the reassurance he needs. "Are you _sure_ you have to go home?" he says, "We're so close."

"I've _got_ to be home for Tanabata! We're understaffed this year and I promised mama ages ago that I'd be around to help with the festival. Besides," she gives a little twirl, which briefly impedes their progress up the hill, "I already look the part! I've got a fancy necklace and everything."

"Yeah, but I still don't like it. What if something happens to you over there?"

"Well, what if something happens to me over here?" she counters. "Look, we've all agreed it's fishy that no demons have come after this thing yet," she rests her hand lightly over the jewel. It's comfortingly warm, even in the damp weather, "It might mean that Naraku's planning something big. It makes the most sense for me to take the jewel somewhere where he can't get it, at least for a little while."

"If he's got something planned," growls Inuyasha, flashing a bright fang, "I'll protect you, Kagome."

And she doesn't have the heart to argue with him on that point so instead she says, "It'll only be for a week or so and I promised Mama. I'll bring you back ramen and some sweets for Shippo too. Oh! And Sango wants more shampoo and I think Miroku's finished with the books I brought for him. He'll probably want more chips too." And then she realized she was rambling so she decided to wrap it up with a nice little bow. "I'll be back before you even realize I'm gone."

"Keh," he says and his ears are flattened against his head. He sniffs. He sniffs again. "Ah, shit," he groans.

"What? What is it?" She is immediately on guard, snatching her bow and quiver of arrows out of Inuyasha's unprotesting hand. She winces when it pulls at her injured shoulder and scans the line of trees around them.

"It's Sesshoumaru." He says the name like a dirty word. "What the hell's that bastard doing around here now?"

But Kagome relaxes visibly. The brothers have reached something that vaguely resembles a truce. At least, they don't try to kill each other on sight and they have been known to team up on occasion to fight Naraku. "Oh, is that all." And she starts walking toward the well again.

"Well? Whaddya want, Bastard?" Calls Inuyasha behind her. She doesn't need to turn around to know who he's talking to.

"These are my lands. I may go where I please." Is the cold reply.

"Yeah, but this is _my_ forest, so piss off!"

When she reaches the well, she turns back to look at them. She wishes they'd at least take it somewhere else. Sesshoumaru doesn't know she's from the future or that the well transports her between times, and she'd like to keep it that way. So instead of jumping in, she slings her bow and quiver over her shoulder, plants a hand on her hip, and, summoning her best Angry Voice, growls, "Inuyasha!"

It's a tone he's heard many times before and it's got his ears flat against his head before he even realizes what's happening. Even Sesshoumaru's eyes slant toward her and she can feel the bottom drop out of her stomach. She tells herself that she isn't afraid of him; it's just that he's so cold all the time. It's off-putting.

Against her chest, the jewel pulses. She assumes (wrongly) that it's reacting to the presence of Sesshoumaru, a full and very powerful demon.

She swallows thickly and then musters all the courage she can. "Inuyasha, I don't have time for this right now." She barks out. "If you will put your fight with your brother—"

"Half brother," corrects Inuyasha.

" _Half_ brother," corrects Kagome with a roll of her eyes, "On hold long enough to hand me my bag, I'll—"

"Woman."

It's Sesshoumaru's cold voice and it's such a surprise that she actually stops talking.

"Hey! Don't call Kagome woman! Only I can –"

"Get away from that well." It's not a question. It's not a suggestion. It's a command.

Kagome bristles. Nobody tells her what to do. Especially when it comes to coming and going anywhere. She's fought for years for her right to come and go as she pleases and she's not giving it up just because a second dog has decided it's his business. She glares at him, all fear evaporating in the wake of her wrath. "Why should I do that? You don't get to tell me what to do just because you're a big scary demon."

The jewel pulses so hot it almost burns in its intensity. Inuyasha's ears prick forward suddenly and he turns, wide-eyed to face Kagome completely. If she were any less angry, she would have noticed that he had turned his back to his brother and she would have thought it was strange. "Kagome," he begins, "Listen—"

"No, _you_ listen. Both of you! I am so sick of—"

And when she looks back on this, she remembers everything in snapshots; just still images instead of a full picture. She remembers Sesshoumaru, his single arm poised on the hilt of his sword, eyes bleeding red as he stares directly at her. She remembers the wide _O_ of shocked horror on Inuyasha's mouth as realization dawns much slower upon his face. She remembers turning, wondering what it was that they were looking at. And she remembers the wide-mouthed face of Madame Centipede before countless hands grabbed at her and dragged her into the well and into that familiar, blinding light.

* * *

"Fuck! Kagome!" His brother calls and rushes forward.

Sesshoumaru watches as if from very, very far away as Inuyasha draws his sword and jumps into the well. Swears profusely. Leaps out. Jumps in again.

Eventually, Sesshoumaru shakes enough of the strange dissociation to walk forward. "The well will not open now." He said flatly.

"How do you know? You don't know anything about this!"

"The jewel is complete. It is no longer in two places at once."

"Fuck you! She got here in the first place, didn't she?"

"This is not her home?"

And that's when Inuyasha's brain shakes itself back into action. "Hey," he says, his ears twitching and his eyes narrowing, "How do you know any of this stuff?"

"Because," Sesshoumaru says very slowly, "That human—"

"Her name's _Kagome_."

Sesshoumaru stares at Inuyasha. If he were the type to glare, he would be glaring. "Is not the first Shikon Miko I have known. While I do not know all the power the Shikon Jewel possesses, I am vaguely familiar with some of its abilities."

Inuyasha sniffed the air. "Bullshit. There's something you're not saying." He growled low in his throat. "You bastard. If you know something about what's going on that you're not telling me, I'll beat it out of you."

"That creature," Sesshoumaru said after a long time, "Have you seen it before?"

"Madame Centipede?" Inuyasha snorts indelicately. "Pfft. Yeah. Kikyo killed her once like fifty years ago and then I killed her _again_ like four years back. Ugly bitch just doesn't want to stay dead."

"Hnn."

"Why?"

"Because I have seen it before as well."


	2. Obon - The Dead, Talking

Chapter 2: Obon – The Dead, Talking

* * *

Sesshoumaru knows the moment the Power explodes into being. The strength of it has his eyes turning red and his mouth filling with extra teeth before he catches himself. It's so strong that even the Fire Cat he's been stalking for the last quarter of an hour feels it.

He's so stunned by the sheer enormity of the pressure that he turns like a dog scenting something enticing in the air (which he is, in all the ways that count). He checks his baser instincts, telling himself that anything that smells too good to be true probably is. There are plants that smell like rotting meat to attract the flies they eat. There is a demon that disguises themselves as caves and wail like children and Miko walk themselves into its belly so it never has to hunt at all. If he will approach the power at all, it will be in this form, where it is easier to think clearly and rationally.

The Fire Cat transforms in a flurry of sparks and lets out a roar before taking to the sky in the opposite direction of the immense Power. He sniffs as he watches his would-be quarry shrink into the distance. At least _he_ has the self-control to keep himself from transforming completely. _What a stupid beast._

But the thrum of the Power against his every nerve hasn't lessened and he can't quite bring himself to turn his face away from it. _If it is a foe, I will vanquish it_ , he reasons, _If it can be taken, I will take it._ _These lands belong to my pack. Any power upon them is mine for the taking_.

A voice in his head that sounds remarkably like his father's warns that he's just coming up with reasons to justify what he already wants to do. A power like _that_ might not be safe and perhaps he should alert the rest of the pack instead.

 _But there is no harm in merely ascertaining what it is_.

He crouches, the muscles in his legs tensing, and then he springs into the air.

* * *

Over and over they tumble in the star-strewn void between times.

"Give it to me! Give me the Shikon no Tama!" Mistress Centipede's voice grates like dry stones against Kagome's ears.

Kagome suspects this might be a good place for a pithy one-liner, but all she can think is _Not THIS again! She's supposed to be dead!_ and even if she could think of something clever to say, she should probably be spending her time doing something more constructive. Like trying to figure out how to get out of this predicament.

The glamour over the centipede demon splits and flakes and her true face, full of teeth and stinking of rot, presses against the side of Kagome's head. Her eyes glow like hellfire. Her tongue, cold and dry, slithers over Kagome's neck and under the collar of her hakui.

 _This is so gross!_ Kagome squeals inside her own head, wincing and turning her face away from the monster. She can feel the power, acting on instinct she's never been able to master, thrum to life in her veins. It prickles against her palms and, more out of habit than any real skill, she lifts her hands and presses them against the side of Mistress Centipede's face.

The prickle intensifies to something between tickling and pain as light glows bright and Mistress Centipede shrieks. Her face is a crumbling mess, all jagged teeth and a tongue that lolls out of a broken jaw. Reeling in pain and surprise, the demon releases her just as the glow around them fades and sets them down on the familiar dirt floor of the well.

And under pounding water.

Kagome doesn't think. She kicks for the surface, trying to put as much distance as she can between herself and the still-stunned centipede demon, her lungs aching for a breath she didn't think to take before their arrival. The quiver of arrows over her shoulder weighs her down, so she fumbles it over her head. Her sandals soon follow. She'd try to remove her weighty Hakama, too, but her head breaks the surface of the water before she gets that far. Gasping, coughing up a mouthful of water, and trying ineffectually to shake her wet hair out of her eyes, she reaches for the edge of the well, bow still clutched in her right hand. Her cold fingers scramble for purchase in the vines that cling to the warped wood. Her injured shoulder screams in protest but the adrenaline coursing through her body gives her the strength to pull herself out of the water despite the weight of her wet clothing.

She flops head-first over the rim of the well and allows herself several deep, panting gulps of air. Her heart thuds in her ears. She looks up at the sky. It is _still_ raining. Something about that feels wrong, but before she can figure out why, Mistress Centipede explodes upward in a spray of cold water and a shriek of rage.

Kagome is on her feet and stumbling away from the well as the demon dives forward, her broken mouth crashing into the dirt where Kagome was resting only seconds before. Kagome doesn't look back until she's halfway down the hill, and even then it's only for a second; just long enough to see Mistress Centipede's many legs quickly closing the distance between them. She doesn't realize it, but she's running in the direction of Kaede's village. If she could scream, she would call Inuyasha's name, but her breath is coming in sharp gasps and she's got a stitch in her side so she just follows where her feet lead.

When she reaches the foot of the hill and looks out over the valley, she knows she won't find any help in the village. There is no village to get help _from_. There are no huts. There are no villagers. There are no rice fields. There certainly is no Kaede. The hand gripping her bow tightens. She can feel blood soaking through the bandage on her shoulder. Her side aches. She cannot think of where she should run. There is no one here who can save her. There is only one option left to her.

Purity prickles against her fingertips as she closes her right hand around her left at the far end of her bow. She turns and raises it to her right shoulder, ignoring the way the stance pulls at her injury.

Mistress Centipede is barreling toward her through the grass, her tongue hanging sickeningly out of her ruined mouth and her eyes are bright with a monstrous fury. None of the glamour remains now.

Kagome swallows the dry lump in her throat. _Just like gym class_ , she tells herself and tries not to think about how many gym classes she has missed over the years. _Just like Mrs. Yakuda said: Swing and follow-through. That's all there is to it._

She tries to imagine the head of the deranged demon coming at her as a baseball. It isn't easy. In her hands, the bow begins to glow pink. The prickling intensifies in her hands, sharp and right on the edge of pain. Against her neck, the jewel glows so hot that it feels cold.

 _Ok, Kagome_ , she tells herself, _You only get one shot. Swing and follow-through. And hope for the best, I guess. Just wait until she's in range!_

The demon is almost upon her when it suddenly occurs to Kagome that she has never managed to hit even one ball when they played baseball in gym class. Her batting average is only zero because batting averages don't go into negative numbers. So she does the only thing that makes sense at this point: She screws her eyes shut and swings with everything she's got.

* * *

He is watching from a tree when the human flops over the lip of the well. He assumes she's human, but she looks more like a half-drowned cat. Even if he couldn't see the read stain spreading across her white robes, he can smell the iron tang of her blood in the air. _So she is injured_.

She is dressed like a Miko so he assumes that she has something to do with the Power he sensed earlier, but the only thing that seems even remotely exceptional about her is that she carries a bow but no arrows. Even that isn't interesting; it just sounds like the first half of one of the riddles his mother is so fond of. _Who carries a bow with no arrows?_ He'll have to think about that.

She remains panting at the edge of the well even though he can hear the clicking of hundreds of legs in the water. _Does she think she has vanquished her foe already?_ He wonders. And, with his head canted slightly to one side, _Who would rest so close to an enemy?_ But then the centipede breaks through the surface of the water and the human scrambles up and starts to run like she has absolutely no intention of facing down her assailant.

 _Cowardice_ , Sesshoumaru decides. There's no way a human can outrun a centipede demon. Especially a human like this one. He is not a very good judge of human anatomy, but she seems particularly delicate for one of her species. He decides that he must have imagined the huge burst of power he'd felt. The demon doesn't seem particularly strong and this human seems completely incompetent.

He's toying with the idea of heading off to look for another Fire Cat nest when the human stops running. His eyebrows raise fractionally when she grips her bow with both hands and adopts a stance that is clearly practiced but that he doesn't recognize. _Not cowardice_ , he amends, _A plan._ His eyes widen imperceptibly as he can feel her spiritual power begin to build. She channels them into the bow. It raises the hairs on the back of his neck and grates against his nerves. His instincts tell him to run but he has trained too hard to be at the beck and call of his every animal whim, so he remains unmoving. He wants to see what will happen next. He is curious about this strange human and her immense power.

When she swings the bow and it makes contact with the centipede demon, it unleashes a wave of power so strong that even Sesshoumaru, perched at the top of a tree at the top of the hill, feels it like hot knives slicing into every inch his skin. He raises his arms to protect his face from the assault of vicious purity but even still he cannot shut the light out completely. He has never been in pain like this. The snarl that rips from his mouth is fueled by pain and fear and for one long, horrible heartbeat, he is sure that he is going to die.

But then the power pulls back. It retreats like a tsunami rushing back to the ocean after it crashes over the shore, and he digs his claws into the trunk of the tree to keep himself from getting pulled from his perch. He can feel the skin regrowing on the blades of his forearms. He can smell the flesh repairing itself. In a few moments, he will be fine again, but that does not change the fact that she has managed to hurt him. He is sure that it was unintentional since the attack was leveled against the centipede demon and the human isn't even aware of his presence, but the shock of it kindles a temper he generally keeps on a short leash. He snarls again and coils for an attack but as the red fades from his eyes, he pauses. He reins in the wrath. He has no master; not even instinct.

At the base of the hill, the priestess is on her hands and knees, gasping for breath beside the steaming remains of the centipede demon. And, he realizes with mounting curiosity, she is talking to herself.

"I cannot believe that worked!" Kagome laughs between hungry gulps of air. "It actually worked! Wait until I tell Inuyasha and the others! 'School will never be useful,' he said. Ha!"

But as she looks over the blackened remains scattered across the hillside, she realizes something very important: This is not her time and this is not the Feudal Era. This is somewhere—no, some _when_ —completely different. Yet again, Mistress Centipede has pulled her to a time she doesn't know. But this time, there is no Inuyasha to save her. Immediately her mind begins to think about the implications of this. How far back has she gone? What impact will this have on the future? She's learned enough in four years of traveling through time to know that sometimes actions in the present (whenever the _present_ happened to be) could affect the future.

She sits back on her heels and glares up at the sky. Cold raindrops smack into her face. The sky is unforgiving gray. "Is this _really_ necessary?" She calls up to whatever fates or deities are listening. "Aren't things hard enough already?"

As if in answer, two pieces of the demon roll towards one another and fuse. Kagome yelps and leaps back onto her feet.

The power comes more easily this time and the bow glows pink immediately. She brings it down with both hands on the twitching lump of still-steaming flesh, purifying it instantly. It doesn't do much to improve her situation, but she does feel a little better. She takes a deep breath and gingerly touches her shoulder. "Right," she murmurs to herself as she remembers the last time she fought this particular monstrosity, "I forgot." She bites her lip and looks out over the scattered body parts. Some are already twitching. _Life will return to it whenever the Sacred Jewel is near_ , Kaede had warned.

So this leaves Kagome with two options: She can either move Mistress Centipede or move the jewel. Since she isn't particularly looking forward to the idea of spending all afternoon throwing chunks of demon into what she's come to think of as her personal time travel machine, she picks her way around the scattered remains and back to the well.

 _She is wrong in the head_ , Sesshoumaru decides as the human walks up to the well and, with perfect confidence, jumps in. He's mildly surprised that a human knows how to swim like a fish, but he's mostly confused. _What's she doing swimming with an injury like that?_ _While it's raining, no less._ He listens to her splash around under water for a few minutes and then he listens to her swear colorfully when she resurfaces. She seems to be completely unaware of his presence and, after several more rounds of diving and cursing, she throws her bow over the lip of the well. He assumes she does this so that she can better move through the water, but it leaves her unarmed.

Emboldened, he lands gently on the grass a dozen paces from the well.

She dives and resurfaces twice more before, exhausted, she pulls herself up over the lip of the well and drops limply to the grass beside her abandoned bow. She sniffles wetly and he can smell the salt of her tears as she wipes a wet sleeve ineffectually across her wet face, her head bowed low over her drawn-up knees. Her teeth chatter together as she shivers despite the temperate weather. He takes this chance to examine her more closely. He sniffs the air delicately, but he can discern no hints of her origins. The water has washed away every trace of personal information save the blood that is staining her hakui and the salt of her tear. He would not even know she had fought a demon and triumphed if he had not seen it with his own two eyes. And speaking of the demon…

His eyes slant sideways to where the segments of the centipede are slowly rejoining. It is mildly interesting. He has never seen anything return from the dead before and wonders what, exactly, has given the centipede this ability. In a matter of hours, though, the Centipede will be completely reformed and either the priestess will fight again or she will die. He looks back at the huddled mass of crying priestess who has still not seemed to notice even _his_ presence.

This annoys him. He is not used to remaining unnoticed for this long. It does not do for one in his station to remain unnoticed by a lowly human priestess. "Miko," he says quietly.

She yelps at the voice and shoots to her feet, holding her empty hands out defensively. She stills when she sees him. He looks a bit different from how he normally does—his hair is braided down his back and there is a softness around his eyes that she doesn't think was there when she saw him an hour ago—but she's willing to overlook that for now in the wake of her relief. She'd recognize him anywhere. She knows it's him by the rigid poise of his posture and the proud tilt of his jaw. She knows it's him by the stripes cutting down his cheeks and the crescent moon that shows between his snow-white bangs. Despite their tumultuous history, his presence is soothing in the midst of all this strangeness.

"Sesshoumaru!" She says, her stance relaxing as she brings the hand of her uninjured arm to rest over her pounding heart. "You startled me! I was just wondering what I was going to do! Everything's been so awful all morning. Do you know where…" but she trails off when she notices the uncharacteristic widening of his yellow eyes. In all the years that she has fought against and alongside Sesshoumaru, he has looked at her in disdain, he has stared her down in anger, and he has stared through her like she's beneath his notice. He has never looked at her like that. Like he is surprised that she knows his name. The expression disappears after a moment, smoothed over by his normal look of bored superiority, but it has told her something very important: This Sesshoumaru doesn't know her.

And her heart sinks in her chest as she notices other differences between the demon in front of her and the demon she knows. He has two hands and his right one rests casually on the hilt of a sword she doesn't recognize. The osode that peaks around the edges of his (thankfully familiar) armor is patterned with maroon flowers that match the stripes on his cheeks— _Kikyo flowers_ she realizes almost hysterically. And then she cannot stop the tears that are welling in her eyes. She doesn't know this Sesshoumaru any more than he knows her.

He has no idea what to think about her strange reaction. He'd chalk it up to insanity or a death wish if she had not used his name. He'd assume she had heard of his ferocious powers if she had not seemed so visibly relieved to see him. "You will explain how you know this Sesshoumaru, Miko," he says smoothly, as though strange and powerful priestesses are an everyday occurrence, "And then you must finish what you started." He gestures to the reforming segments of centipede.

Her eyes follow his hand to where almost a foot of centipede has reformed. "Oh come _on_!" She whines. "Not _already_! It took so much longer last time and I purified her so well today!"

The surprise flickers across his face again. It's only there for half a heartbeat, but it's long enough.

"Mistress Centipede," she explains.

He blinks.

"She uh, she regenerates if she's close to the—uh, if she's close to me," Kagome finishes lamely. She's never been a very good liar. She can feel herself beginning to sweat under his steady gaze. She looks down at her muddy socks. Her hands fidget with her sleeves.

"You are lying, Miko. I can smell it on you."

And what can she say to that? She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth and hums noncommittally.

She squirms like a pup as he continues to stare at her, but he is surprised when she does not volunteer the truth immediately. If she knows his name, surely she must know that he is not famed for his mercy. She is either very brave or very foolish and he cannot decide which one he thinks she is. So he decides to hazard a guess: "It is the power you carry that allows this demon to heal itself, even in death."

She gasps. Her hand flies to the pendant around her neck and her wide eyes lock with his. The sudden eye contact sends a jolt of electricity down his spine. The challenge she issues by meeting his gaze cannot go unanswered. A growl begins in his throat. His eyes narrow. He cracks the knuckles of his left hand in a thinly veiled threat.

"So you already know about the jewel!" She says and a small smile tilts up the corners of her mouth. Her shoulders sag and her breath evens out, but she does not look away. She does not revoke her challenge. "Thank goodness! I was so worried that I'd gone too far back, you know?"

He does not appreciate her challenge and he doesn't like knowing that a human has the power to destroy a demon so effectively. He still remembers the prickle of pain and so he grinds out, "You will give it to this Sesshoumaru." He holds out his hand. "And perhaps I might be merciful and kill you quickly."

The smile on her face doesn't disappear, but it does stiffen. The hand that is still resting over her pendant tightens. "Give you…what?" She says. Her voice is so light that it sounds brittle. Like it will snap at any moment. He hears the absence of her breath.

"Give me the jewel," he repeats, using the word she used for the strange pendant. Now that he knows what he's looking for, he can feel the power that swirls within it. It's a hungry power that yearns to be used. It will make him stronger.

"I-I can't," she stammers and takes a hesitant step backward. "You know I can't. You've never been interested in it before. What's changed?"

"You claim to know many things about me," he growls. He takes a step forward. He can hear the hammering of her heart. "How do you come to know these things? I do not consort with your kind. I do not know you."

"I-I can't tell you that." She takes another step back. He can smell the tang of blood and the heady aroma of adrenaline pounding through her breakable veins.

"If you do not give me that jewel, you will do nothing else ever again." He can see her pupils contract with fear and the color drain out of her delicate face.

"I can't give it to you," she insists even though her voice trembles, "It's my duty to protect it. If I wouldn't give it to Inuyasha, I won't give it to you, either." She stamps her small foot in emphasis.

He can taste her fear in the air. He knows she is afraid. But he can also feel the collecting of that immense power in the palms of her hands and because he does not want to taste it again, he does not attack. But he cannot ignore the challenge of her staring eyes and he wants the jewel. He knows that it can grant its holder immeasurable power. He stalks forward until he is only the length of one arm away from her.

She goes to take another step backward, but her legs hit the edge of the well and she almost trips. When she turns her head to watch herself on the wooden ledge, she exposes the long pale line of her neck and, at last, she looks away. It is submission. He takes a calming breath and his agitated instinct is calmed. As the fog of challenge lifts from over his eyes, he can see that she is staring at him with a pleading expression. She doesn't want to give him the jewel ( _This will be remedied_ , he snarls in his own mind, _I will have it_ ) but she doesn't want to fight him, either. So he tries a different strategy. "If you know my name, surely you must know that I could overpower you easily and take it for myself. Why will you not give it to me?"

And it seems like this was the right choice because immediately she relaxes again, her breath coming in deeper pulls and her heart slowing perceptibly in her chest. But she doesn't answer right away. She nibbles on her bottom lip like she's trying to figure out how much to tell him. "Oh," she says, "It's, um, this thing isn't good for demons."

He bristles at this. "And yet a mere _human_ like you might use it?" He growls.

"No, no, no!" She says quickly. "I can't use it either! Well, I mean," she looks down at it, her eyebrows drawn down as she puzzles through something in her own mind, "I guess it lends me its power, but I can't, you know, _use_ it." And then, much to his surprise, her eyes are shining with tears again, "I can't even use it to get home now!"

He decides right then that this Miko is a very confusing creature. He has a sense that, should he allow things to continue in this way for much longer, she will become troublesome. He wonders if he can kill her before she can purify him.

"Oh," she says, looking up at him with wide, surprised eyes and for one heart-stopping moment, he thinks that she can read minds. But then she says, "But it's not like I live at the bottom of a well or anything! That would be crazy!" and he decides that she _can't_ read minds after all. He breathes a small sigh of relief.

She laughs. He refrains from pointing out how crazy it makes her sound.

"No! I, um, I live, um," she looks around and he can tell she's looking for inspiration. He raises a single eyebrow and waits. "I live very far away from here. Yes! Very far away." A second eyebrow joins his first. He knows she is lying. He can smell it on her. "And until now," she continues, "The jewel has let me go back and forth to my home."

The only sound that greets her proclamation is the gentle pitter patter of the rain. He suspects that, if he says nothing, she'll speak again. She seems to have a problem with silences and he is very, very patient.

"But the well won't open now," she says when the tension has stretched for too long, "I think I might have messed up by trying to take it with me, now that it's complete again."

"Complete again? What happened to it?" He asks before he can stop himself.

"I...I broke it. But I fixed it in the end!" She adds hurriedly. "I _am_ a priestess and I _do_ have to protect this jewel." She looks shyly up at him, her teeth worrying her bottom lip again. "I can't tell you more about where I come from than that. I know you could probably _make_ me talk or kill me for the jewel and I don't think I could stop you. But please trust me when I say that someday you will be glad that you didn't kill me for the jewel today. It isn't good for anyone—people or demons. It makes everyone crazy. That's why I've got to take care of it." Her chin wobbles again. "Because I'm the only one who can." And then, as if sensing that this might wound his pride, she adds, "It's not because I'm stronger than you or anything. It's just…" she grasps weakly for a proper explanation, "It's something I was born to do, I guess?" She finishes lamely. "Does that make sense?"

Behind him, he can hear two more segments of centipede rejoin.

He understands being born into duty, but he won't tell her that. He doesn't like how familiar she seems to be with him already. He's not going to give her any more information than he has to. "How do you know this Sesshoumaru?" He repeats, keeping his face blank.

She sniffs again and gives him a wet smile. "Well, uh, my time with the jewel has given me, er, certain, um, insights into the future. So I knew that I will—I mean _would_ —meet you someday. That's how I know you won't kill me for the jewel today. I can't tell you more than that, either, I'm afraid," she says. "Sorry."

The apology is small mollification. "What _can_ you tell me?" He grumbles, dropping his formal speech in his growing frustration. He runs his claws through his bangs and is displeased that they are _still_ getting wet.

She seems surprised by his informal tone and he resolves not to make the same mistake again. "I'm not sure," she says. "Uh," she looks around, like she's trying to think of something she can tell him that might be useful. Her eyes light up with sudden inspiration. "I can tell you that I know we'll be allies some day in a difficult battle."

He cannot stop the small widening of his eyes. Even she can tell that he is surprised by her words. He can smell the conviction on her. It's so strong that he can practically taste it in the air between them. This surprises him. He wonders if she knows what she has just proclaimed, but he will not ask.

"And, um…" she taps her chin with a finger, clearly trying to think of something else to say. "Who's the emperor right now?"

"It is the two hundred and forty-second year of the reign of Inu no Taisho," he says and lifts his chin a little higher.

She looks even more surprised than she had before. "That's your father," she gasps.

He inclines his head in a regal nod. _So her knowledge_ does _extend beyond information about me._ Somehow, it's a comfort.

"That long ago?" she muses aloud, and then she asks, "What about Izayoi?"

His head cants to one side as he considers the name. "I am unfamiliar with human rulers." He can smell the sharp spike in her fear but he doesn't understand why it happens. He wants to ask, _Why does the name Izayoi scare you? What will this person bring?_ But instead, "Why are you afraid, Miko?" he asks.

"Oh it's nothing," she says noncommittally. He knows it's a lie and he knows that she is aware that he doesn't believe her, but even when he lets the silence stretch between them again she doesn't say any more than that. Sesshoumaru realizes for the first time that the magic of lies is that, even when you know when someone is lying, that doesn't mean you are any closer to knowing the truth. "What are you called?" He asks at last.

Her eyes and mouth widen at this. "I—wow."

"Why does the question surprise you? You know my name. It is only fair that I learn yours."

And there's no way that she could tell him that in all the years he's known her, he's never once asked for her name or called her anything beside _human_ or _Miko_. She realizes—and it's a depressing realization—that she can probably tell him her real name without any fear of messing up the future since he's never made any effort to learn her name in her proper timeline. So she decides to go for it. Kagome's never been one to let caution rule her decisions and she's lonely and she's homesick and what's the point of having an ally if they don't even know your name? "My name's Kagome," she says. "Nice to meet you, Sesshoumaru."

He inclines his head slightly in her direction. "You will accompany me, Kagome."

"I will?" She asks. She glances at the still-reforming centipede. She should probably take care of that, but now that the adrenaline's leaking out of her, her shoulder's starting to ache fiercely.

"Hnnn. This jewel you carry. I claim it for my pack."

"What?" It comes out more as a squawk than she means it to, but she can't help it. She's just too surprised.

"I claim it for my pack," he repeats. And then he explains, "You are on the lands of Inu no Taisho and by rights I may take all that is brought onto his lands as a tithe on his behalf."

"That's barbaric!" She gasps. Her eyes flash angrily. Her good hand drops from the jewel around her neck and lands on her hip. "Do you do things like this often? Just take whatever you want from whoever you please?"

His gaze is steady when he says, "No. I have never had cause to do so before. But if we are to be allies then I should help you watch over the jewel. My father will know what to do with it. If there is anyone who can use it, it is he."

"Your father," she echoes and she's got a faraway look in her eyes that he doesn't like.

"Or will you stay here and wait for the centipede to reform?"

She turns and looks back at Mistress Centipede. Two long, spindly claws are attached to a portion of _…is that thorax?_ She chews her lip and considers his offer. She doesn't think it's a good idea to meet his father. Besides the obvious fact that she's terrified of messing up history any more than she might already have, it feels wrong somehow to talk to Inuyasha's father without him. But she's shivering and her arm aches and she's stuck in a past she doesn't know without even her backpack or any way of getting home and the one person she knows to be even a little bit friendly is offering her a place to go. So she makes up her mind. "Alright," she says slowly, "But only until I can figure out what I need to do next."

He inclines his head once. "Then we will leave at once," he says and begins to walk toward the woods.

"I—" she begins, but then she realizes that he isn't going to wait to hear what she has to say. "Hey!" she calls after him, picking up her bow again and hurrying to catch up, "Hey! You're walking too fast! Slow down!"

* * *

After fifteen minutes of her crashing along behind him in the underbrush, he grows weary of all the noise she makes.

After twenty minutes, her breath starts to come in ragged gasps.

After half an hour, he realizes that he has walked so far ahead of her that he can no longer hear her softly muttered curses every time she steps on a sharp rock and he doubles back to find her sitting on a large stone, holding her foot. A rosette of blood is blossoming around a small hole in her sock.

"Do all humans have such poor feet?" He asks.

She yelps, startled at his sudden, silent appearance. Then she glares up at him. "Well _some of us_ have shoes," she stares pointedly at his shiny black boots and then at her own sock-clad feet. "And _some of us_ lost ours in a well!"

"Very well," he says and holds a hand out to her

She stares at it. "What?" she says at last and looks up at his face, searching for some hint as to what he expects.

"Take care in how you interpret this gesture," he warns, wondering if perhaps humans are as averse to physical contact as his father has always said. But he is not particularly concerned with her delicate sensibilities. If she were worried about propriety, she would not be traveling unaccompanied far from her home. "I mean only to provide assistance. We will not reach my father's castle for many days if we continue at this pace. It will be faster if we fly and to fly will require physical contact."

"Fly." She echoes flatly.

"Hnnn. Many daiyoukai are capable of flight." He says it lightly, as though he is not particularly proud of this ability (which he is). "It will shorten the journey considerably."

"Fly," she echoes again, but there's a light in her eyes that seems more excited than afraid. "Ok," She slips her hand into his. "Let's go."

He marvels at how small her hand seems in his and how easy it is to pull her to her feet. She might be light enough to float away if there wasn't something holding her in place. _Perhaps that is the purpose of the jewel_ , he muses. He will ask his father about it later but right now he pushes the thought aside and gathers his youki into a small shimmering cloud and turns his face to the gray sky.

Kagome lets out a little gasp of surprised awe as they float gently upward. Once they are above the trees and headed west, he releases her hand with a short, "Contact is no longer required," as an explanation. He takes them above the storm. And then, glancing down at his traveling companion, "Take care not to fall off," he warns.

But Kagome hardly seems to notice him. She seats herself on the very edge of the cloud, bow by her side, and looks down at the sea of puffy clouds passing below them. Lightning flashes between clouds. "It's so beautiful," she murmurs.

"Hnnn," he replies and takes them to the west.

* * *

The sun is setting when Kagome sees the lights of the castle. She has spent most of the afternoon seated beside Sesshoumaru on the floating cloud. Reticent to talk to him like she would to Sango or Miroku while they travel, she has been trying to memorize every inch of the landscape. She focuses on the gradual change from the bright green of deciduous trees to conifers and then the conifers spread thin as they approached the grim line of the mountains, which ran like a spine through the heart of the country. They had passed over snow-capped peaks she'd never seen before in her life, had seen far below a family of black bears like tiny specks on an all-white background. The mountains seemed to stretch to the ends of the earth and beyond, disappearing into distant clouds. And then the mountains began to shrink again and the sunset dyed the ocean orange.

"This is Toyama Bay!" She says, excited that she's managed to place herself on a map.

"Hnnn," he replies, and she follows his gaze out to the edge of the horizon when he says, "This is my father's castle."

And the sight pulls a gasp from between her lips. It is a triumph of black roofs arching their backs against the near-black sky and countless yellow torches like stars or shining eyes dotting the long line of the wall. It is a giant standing proud between the mountains and the ocean. It is a force of nature, like a typhoon or a snow storm.

As they get closer, she realizes that it is more like a small city enclosed behind high walls than like the sort of castle she is used to seeing on school field trips. Far below and getting closer all the time, she can hear voices and see small moving shapes. A child laughs. A dog barks. Drums and a tinny flute waft up to her ears. They pass high above a miniature view of a festival.

And as their little cloud is coasting toward the central pavilion, which is all gold and red and bright orange in the torchlight, suddenly Kagome is nervous.

What will she say when she meets Inu no Taisho? What should she do? How is one supposed to address the dead? How low should a Miko bow before a demon lord? Sesshomaru seems to be following the light of the torches and suddenly Kagome thinks of the lights of Obon, guiding the spirits of the dead home once again. She thinks about talking to the dead and realizes that, for the first time, the dead will be talking back.


	3. Hanabi- Flowers & Fire & Flowers of Fire

Hanabi – Flowers & Fire & Flowers of Fire

A/N: In Japanese, Hanabi (花火) literally means "fireworks," but taken separately, the kanji, (花 and 火) mean "flower" (pronounced "hana") and "fire" (which becomes "hi" when it's not at the end of a word…but that's irrelevant right now). Fireworks are, when transliterated, fire flowers. Which is where we get this chapter's title and certain elements that come up later. As well as actual fireworks.

* * *

They are ahead of the storm at this point. They lost it somewhere in the mountains and the sky above them is clear as they float above the outer and then inner courtyards. Sesshoumaru doesn't bother looking down—his ears pick up enough that he doesn't have to. Even with the Miko's _ooh_ s and _aaah_ s he can hear the festivities below. The moon, just barely peeking over the teeth of the mountains, is heavy, but still two or three days from being full.

Which means that the revelers are early; Shichiseki is not to begin properly for several days still.

But the Inu no Taisho enjoys festivals and every year he encourages early, impromptu parties within the walls of his fortress, despite the protestations of his pack.

"It's wonderful, isn't it?" The Miko gasped for what must have been the hundredth time. "Oh, Sesshoumaru, look!" They are close enough now that her eager face is stained orange in the torchlight. Her hair glimmers black and gold, waving behind her.

"Hnnn," he hums noncommittally without even bothering to look at what she sees. He has attended parties before; there is nothing down there to surprise him and nothing that he is eager to see. He focuses on guiding them toward the inner palace, which rises tall and proud at the heart of the compound. He stands a little taller as it becomes the center of his focus, trying to match his posture to that of his home.

"Oh wow!" Her gasp comes now from to his right and he looks down to find her staring in rapt attention at the inner palace.

"Hnnn," he replies.

Kagome is surprised when he floats their cloud about half way up and brings them to a gentle stand-still on a wrap-around balcony about halfway up the pagoda's many tiers. The cloud dissipates into wisps of smoke and then vanishes completely, leaving Kagome on her hands and knees against the dark, polished wood. "Shouldn't we, er, use the door?" she suggests as lightly as she can.

When Sesshoumaru turns to look down at her, his eyes shine in the darkness, reflecting the torchlight like a cat's. The stripes that frame his elegant features are almost black against the paleness of his skin in the dim light. His braided hair swings like a pendulum as he turns. He stares, not at her, but at the Shikon no Tama suspended like a noose around her neck. Kagome is pinned in place by his cool gaze. Her heart is in her throat and she realizes for the first time that the human blood in Inuyasha tempers more than just his appearance. In all the years she has known him, Kagome has never realized how much humanity softened his stare. Although she cannot explain where exactly she sees it, she can sense something animal in Sesshoumaru's unwavering gaze; predatory and powerful. He does not blink. He does not even seem to breathe. She has seen that hunger for power reflected in other eager eyes; she saw them just this morning in the stoplight-red stare of Mistress Centipede. Kagome's hand lifts to cover the pendant protectively, hiding it from Sesshoumaru's gaze.

And just like that, the spell is broken and, as though Kagome is not shaking and as though he had not just been coveting the jewel, Sesshoumaru smoothly says, "The front door is for guests and dignitaries. I have no use for it."

And then he is stalking past her and he slides open a shoji door, spilling warm yellow light into the night air.

When she makes no move to stand, he turns back to look at her. "Miko," he says, "Come."

The command in his tone raises her hackles and brings her back to herself, carrying indignity like a war flag. "I _have_ a name, you know," she says testily even as she gets to her feet and picks up her bow.

"Hnnn." He removes his boots in a fluid motion and walks through the doorway, leaving his shoes behind.

"No, don't you 'Hnnn,' me!" She grouses and follows behind him, stopping only to drop her ruined socks beside his boots. They hit the floor with a wet _splat_ and she is glad to be rid of them. "I told you! My name is Kagome!" And even as the words leave her mouth she knows how familiar they are and so she can't keep herself from muttering darkly, "Hmph. You're all the same. You just want the jewel and don't bother with being civil. Is it a dog demon thing? Or is it just your particular—" but she catches his eye and realizes where her rant is leading before she says anything that might _really_ change the future.

He turns to look back at her but does not stop walking. "To whom do you compare this Sesshoumaru?" he says it like he isn't interested.

"Oh, no one," she says airily.

"You have met other dog demons before?"

She draws her lower lip between her teeth. "Er, one or two, maybe," she hedges.

He faces forward so she does not see the surprise that he fails to conceal on his face. "Hnnn," he says. "Where?"

"Oh, you know," her voice is light again, "Here and there. I…spend a lot of time traveling."

And he stops so abruptly in front of the door that she very nearly runs into him. He slides it back and stalks inside. The room is inky blackness. She lingers in the doorway.

"Miko," he says again, "Come."

She shakes her head. "It's too dark," she says.

"You fear the darkness?" His rich voice is flat when it comes to her from the dark depths of the room.

"Of course not!" she huffs. She has not spent four years facing Naraku without facing darkness a time or two. She fancies that there's not much left that can scare her if it isn't actively trying to kill her. And isn't a caterpillar. "I just don't want to bump into anything! I can't see in the dark."

It's silent for a moment. "You can see nothing in this room? Even now?"

She barely suppresses an eye-roll. It's just like Inuyasha was, but even worse. "No. Humans don't have great night vision. I can't see anything at all."

"Hnnn." His voice comes from a different part of the darkness. There's a scrape and then a candle flares into life. "Will this suffice?"

In the warm golden glow, she can see that it is a room four tatami wide and five tatami across. There is a low desk of carved dark wood built into the far wall and a small raised alcove against the right side. Sesshoumaru is seated beside the desk. The room is otherwise bare. It smells like sawdust and wheat. The effect is calming and she walks inside.

"It's lovely," she says and stands in the center of the room.

At once, Sesshoumaru is on his feet and past her once again. "Wait here," he says, "Dinner will arrive shortly as will fresh clothes. You will be presented once you have been prepared." He pauses and seems to consider his next words carefully. At last, he says, "I am sure I do not need to tell you that it would be foolish to summon the jewel's power here. This kingdom belongs to my kind, not to yours. I have refrained from taking it from you so that I might present it to my father. Others here will not have the same qualms."

"Of course not!" she replies, "And I wouldn't try to purify anyone here anyway!" She's mildly offended that he'd think she might do something like that when she's a guest in his house, but he just nods and slides the door shut.

She stands stock-still in the center of the room, bathed in guttering candlelight, unsure what to do now. After a few minutes, once she's sure he isn't coming back, she sits with a sigh on the cushion in front of the desk and looks up at the intersecting ceiling beams.

"Crap," she says. "What am I going to do now?"

* * *

She is dozing when there's a hesitant knock at the door and a quiet voice says, "Ah, uhm, excuse me."

Kagome sits up, rubs the sleep out of her eyes, and says, "Yeah? Come in."

The door slides open a fraction and a tray slides into view first, followed shortly by a very pretty, but very nervous-looking face. "Is it alright for me to enter, honored guest?" She says, and her voice is light and tinkling like a string of bells. Her wide, amber eyes are framed by light purple hair and her face is unmarked. She looks only a bit older than Kagome. If she were human, Kagome would guess her age to be about twenty-three or twenty-four, but the pointed ears knifing out of her hair on either side of her head belie a purely youkai origin.

"Yes! Of course!" Kagome says, smiling brightly at the demoness. "Please come in!"

"Oh, um, well, excuse me, then!" Her voice is still soft; like she's worried about disturbing someone as she fumbles the tray further into the room ahead of herself. Once she's fully inside, she turns to pull the door shut, giving Kagome a few of three bushy, beautiful lavender tails tucked low.

"Oh my gosh!" Kagome coos and crosses the room in a few easy strides, kneeling beside the flustered serving girl. "You're a kitsune! Your tails are so beautiful! And you're a three-tail! That's so wonderful."

The kitsune girl is so shocked that she jerks backward, soup sloshing from one of the covered dishes. "Oh dear!" She mumbles, a deep blush spreading across her petite features as she looks demurely away. "Um, t-thank you, honored guest."

"I've got a friend who's a kitsune. He travels with I—with my other friends and me," Kagome babbles on, so thankful for companionship that she can't stop herself, "But he's only a one-tail."

"A one-tail?" The kitsune girl looks up, surprised, her tails twitching in agitation. "But that's practically just a kit—He shouldn't be going anywhere. One-tails belong in the den. What on earth does his mother have to say about that?" And then her eyes widen even more and she slaps a hand tipped in tiny claws over her own mouth. "Oh dear! I'm so sorry, honored guest! I spoke without thinking! I do beg your pardon."

"No, no, no!" Reassures Kagome, her own eyes widening at the threat of alienating her new companion, " _I'm_ sorry! Everyone always says I talk too much. I shouldn't have ambushed you like that. My name's Kagome, by the way, so you don't need to keep up with all this 'honored guest' stuff. I mean, I really appreciate it. You're doing a great job. Is this my dinner?" she knows she's rambling so she latches on to the first solid thing she can think of. "Great! Dinner! I'm starving. I haven't eaten since I left Kaede's this morning." She reaches for the tray, but the kitsune girl snatches it back so quickly that soup spills again.

"Ah! Yes, sorry, honor—I mean, sorry, Kagome. Yes, this is your dinner. Please let me set it up for you! You don't have to do anything."

Kagome sits in an awkwardly formal pose while the kitsune girl spreads the dishes across the wooden desk. It's only a few minutes before the silence has stretched farther than Kagome can stand and she says, "They're dead, by the way. Shippo's—my kitsune friend's—family. That's why he travels with us."

The kitsune clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Poor thing. To be alone at such a young age. It must be very difficult, and to be traveling with a human, too" Her eyes widen as she realizes what she's said. "I mean, I'm sure—"

"No, you're right," Kagome laughs and self-consciously tugs on her hair, "but there are another demon and a half-demon, so it's not like he's all alone with us or anything."

The kitsune looks truly shocked at this. "You travel with two demons and a hanyou?" she gasps. And then, "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Such mixing is all but unheard of. I have never seen a human in the whole of the Inu no Taisho's palace grounds before you. How do you come to travel with two demons, and a _hanyou_ no less? I have only heard of their existence."

She bristles on behalf of her friend. "Hanyou aren't bad. They're amazing. They've got the best traits of humans _and_ demons. They're strong and brave and they don't deserve to be hated for how they're made."

"Forgive me, my lady," demurs the kitsune, her tails drooping. "I was not thinking. I did not mean to insult your friend."

And she looks so dejected that Kagome's heart softens at once. "Are we really so different, do you think?" she asks, her head on one side. "There are some demons, sure, who don't seem to be much more than animals, but I don't think we're so different, are we? You and me?"

The kitsune's expression glazes over in a polite smile and her tails tuck low again. "Forgive me, Kagome-sama. It is not my place to say so much. I have spoken out of turn. Please allow me to tell you what dishes I have brought."

The conversation is over. Kagome nods her head and the kitsune names each of the many beautiful dishes. "This is firefly squid and this is our area's signature black rice. Here is eel over rice and this is quail eggs…

And then she bows and scrapes backward out of the room. When the door shuts, Kagome is all alone and the room seems impossibly large and empty.

* * *

Sesshoumaru stalks back and forth across the stretch of hallway immediately adjacent to the throne hall, working out a battle plan before the meeting within the chamber concludes, but the only thing he can think to say is _Who carries a bow with no arrows?_ and even Sesshoumaru knows that if he doesn't have a way to finish the riddle no one will think it's even a little bit clever.

The Inu no Taisho steps out into the hallway.

"Welcome home, Sesshoumaru," his father's voice rumbles when he speaks. He smiles at his only child, but there is curiosity shining in his yellow eyes and the smile does not reach the streaks of blue that cut across his cheeks. "Why have you returned empty-handed, my son?"

"I am not empty-handed," he replies.

And his father's curious eyes cut to the left and to the right, up the hallway and down it again. "I see no Fire Cat. Your mother will be displeased. She has so wanted a pet, Sesshoumaru."

"I have not returned empty-handed," he says again, "I have returned with a power that will add strength to our pack."

The Inu no Taisho breathes in deeply, his eyes sliding shut as he sifts through the smells that cling to his child. "A woman, Sesshoumaru?" His eyes open again and locks them with his son's, challenging. His smile is wide this time, sharp teeth glittering in the dark. "A _human_ woman? What power can there be in one of those? Surely you don't mean your mother to keep _that_ as a pet instead."

Sesshoumaru does not look away. He meets the challenge in his father's gaze and bites down the growl that attempts to claw up his throat. "No, father," he says without missing a beat. "The human is only the vassal of the power. I have brought you both."

"And what have you brought for your mother?" Says a voice as smooth as a sharp blade through water. The wife of Inu no Taisho steps out from behind her husband. Her perfectly painted mouth smiles up at Sesshoumaru.

"Mother," he greets with a nod of his head.

"So formal!" She chides and closes the distance between them. She stands on tiptoe and waits for him to close the distance between them.

He lets out a small grumble of displeasure but touches his nose to hers. She presses her forehead up against his. And once she's assured herself by smell and touch that her only child is here and safe, "No charm at all," she says although she is still smiling, "So unlike your father."

And perhaps she knows that the comment cuts because she changes the subject. "So tell me about this human? What is this power that she possesses?"

* * *

After she has eaten, there is another timid knock at the door and the kitsune attendant enters again, bringing with her this time a large mass of folded fabrics.

"No, I figured I wouldn't be allowed to stay dressed like this," sighs Kagome, looking down at her still-damp Miko garb. The entire left side is stiff with dried blood.

"If you please, Kagome-sama," says the kitsune, "I will help you dress for your audience."

Kagome has no sooner shrugged off her outer robe than the kitsune lets out a little gasp.

"What? What is it?" Asks Kagome, alarmed, twisting left and right. "Is it a spider? Get it off of me!"

"Lady Kagome! You are injured!"

"Oh, this?" As her heart returns to its normal rhythm, she looks down at the bloody bandage that covers her shoulder, "Yeah, but it's a couple days old. Thank goodness it's not a spider. I _hate_ spiders."

"A couple of _days_?" The kitsune sounds both shocked and appalled. "What happened to you?"

Kagome does her best to describe the battle, but when she is finished, the kitsune still looks confused.

"I do not understand, Kagome-sama. If it is so old, why is the injury still there?"

"Oh," Kagome says, and then understanding breaks over her like a wave of cold water, " _Oh._ Yeah, humans don't heal as quickly as demons do."

The would-be student is appalled by this, too. "But human lives are so _short_!"

"They aren't _that_ short. And you're a kitsune! Aren't you supposed to know about humans?"

"Not _this_ sort of thing! We trick but we do not maim! It is all much more civilized than that," there is a hint of pride in her voice.

"What's your name?" Asks Kagome.

"Kurumi," replies the kitsune, still eyeing Kagome's injury. "Wait here, Kagome-sama. I'll be back in a moment."

* * *

"What an interesting girl," sighs his mother, one perfectly manicured finger tapping on her chin thoughtfully. "If all you say is true, then our guest is very interesting indeed."

"I want to see this jewel she carries," rumbles his father.

"And then we will let her go," says Sesshoumaru.

"We shall see," says his father.

"It is best not to be hasty, my son," says his mother.

But Sesshoumaru thinks about the trusting way she called him her ally and he wonders once again if she knew what she was saying.

* * *

Kurumi returns with a basin of warm water that stinks like herbs and a fresh roll of clean bandages.

It stings when she begins to redress Kagome's shoulder, but as Kurumi presses a poultice of foul-smelling plants against the aching wound, the pain immediately begins to lessen. Kagome sighs in relief and says, "Where did you learn how to do this, Kurumi? I thought you didn't have much experience with humans."

Kurumi smiles, a distant look in her eyes. "I was a handmaiden to the Lady of the Wood when I first left my den. She taught me many things. I helped her use a mix like this one when a kit had gotten caught in a trap. I've never forgotten it."

"Who's the Lady of the Wood?" Kagome asks, latching on to the first subject that's had Kurumi saying anything about herself.

"She is marvelous!" Kurumi's eyes light up, "She rules all the forests between Inu no Taisho's southern border and the Dragon's land, which runs south to the sea!"

"Oh, she's a ruler!" Kagome says, realization dawning across her face.

"Oh, yes," sighs Kurumi, "And she's so wonderful. I come from her country, you know."

"Oh! Where are you from?"

"It's very far from here," Kurumi demurs, "Although there are many humans there these days, I'm sure you would not know it." She ties off the end of the bandage and reaches for the first layer of neatly-stacked kimono. It's burnt orange and decorated with fire-red flowers.

"Try me," Kagome insists, "Like I said, I spend a lot of time traveling."

"Heian-kyo," says the kitsune.

 _Heian-kyo, Heian-kyo_ , Kagome thinks to herself, looking back over years of half-remembered history classes. _Why does that sound so familiar_. And then she remembers: _Heian-kyo was the old name for Kyoto. Really old. Like years-with-only-three-digits old._ She swallows thickly. Unless she's mistaken, she's gone back much, much farther than she's used to.

* * *

Kurumi slides the door open and pushes her forward with a whispered, "Good luck!" and then the door is sliding shut and Kagome finds herself kneeling alone, looking up at three figures on a raised platform.

The one on the left she recognizes immediately as Sesshoumaru. His armor is gone and he is wearing a navy yukata. On the right side sits a demoness. Her hair is so long that even though she wears it up in pigtails it pools on either side of her like woven moonlight. On her brow rests a crescent moon identical to Sesshoumaru's and on either cheek is a single, petite stripe. This, Kagome is sure, must be Sesshoumaru's mother.

Kagome looks at the figure in the center of the platform and can feel the bottom drop out of her stomach.

She can see both of them in their father's face. Inuyasha's eyebrows arch over eyes as golden as Sesshoumaru's and Inuysha's cocky, crooked grin curls up one side of his face and wrinkles the edge of a stripe that cuts across his cheek precisely the way Sesshoumaru's does.

"I welcome you on behalf of my pack." He says and his voice is neither Inuyasha or Sesshoumaru, but it is close enough to both to be a ghost of either.

And Kagome doesn't know what to do. How do you address a demon when you know who will kill him? Where should you put your eyes when the dead are smiling down at you with a face that reminds you of the son he will never know? What do you say to the dead when the dead are waiting for you to speak?

"I know I'm good looking," rumbles the Inu no Taisho in a voice so loud and deep that Kagome can feel reverberating in her chest, "But really. You're going to make me blush!"

Kagome can feel her cheeks begin to burn and she flops down into a low seated bow.

On the dais, the demoness raises her sleeve and coughs very demurely. Kagome suspects that she might be hiding a laugh.

"Forgive me!" Kagome says hastily, "I've just heard so much about you! I was overcome!"

"Do humans talk about me?" Asks the daiyoukai with interest. "What do they say?"

"Oh," Kagome lifts her head but keeps her gaze fixed on her folded hands. She thinks back over everything she's heard Myouga or any of the others say over the years. "They say you're a great warrior. Maybe the best there's ever been. You're strong and brave, they say. The great dog general. Kind and compassionate. Loyal."

"They say all of that?" It's the demoness's voice. It's light and airy. She sounds too young to be a mother and too pure to be a wife. But Kagome can't think of anything else she might be.

"Yes, my lady," Kagome murmurs, still keeping her eyes down.

"Then they've got fantastic imaginations and they're liars the lot of them." It's said in the same light, bright voice.

Kagome is so shocked that she looks up at the dais again. The demoness is still looking down at her with polite disinterest and in her perfect mask of indifference, Kagome sees a perfect reflection of Sesshoumaru's cold demeanor.

"You must forgive my lady," Rumbles Inu no Taisho, grinning lopsidedly down at her, exposing one shining fang. "She's just jealous that the humans do not sing her praises instead of mine."

"Sesshoumaru has made you out to be something of a puzzle," continues the demoness as though the ruler of the castle has not spoken at all. "He says that you have brought us a great power."

"Oh, er, yes," Says Kagome, trying without success to catch up with the rapid conversational shift.

"Show it to us," commands the Inu no Taisho. He is still smiling.

"Right now?" Kagome is going to get whiplash from how quickly the tone is shifting. Her hand flies to the gem hidden beneath many folds of kimono. She looks over at Sesshoumaru, who stares blankly back at her.

"Of course. Why else would we bring you here? We've already eaten supper." His smile, so like Inuyasha's, never moves but Kagome hears the threat for what it is. She decides right then that for all the physical similarities between Inuyasha and his father, she much prefers Inuyasha's honesty to the Dog General's.

"Would you prefer to go elsewhere?" Asks the demoness, her head tilted to one side. "Do you need anything you don't have?"

It's so thoughtful that it throws Kagome off for a moment, but she recovers quickly. "I, uh, yeah. If you want to see me use the jewel, I'll need, erm, something to channel it into."

"A conduit, of course," the demoness nods like this makes perfect sense.

Almost imperceptibly, so subtly that she would have missed it had she not been looking at him, Sesshoumaru shakes his head. No, that isn't what she should do now.

"I left my bow upstairs, but if you'd like, I can just show you the jewel instead."

"What would be the advantage of that? Disadvantages?"

Kagome looks between the three dog demons for a moment but eventually says, "I, er, it tends to make people—that is to say, demons—crazy and power-hungry if they're exposed to it for long, but it might be less unpleasant than if I use it to channel my powers."

"Yes," rumbled the demon lord, "Sesshoumaru mentioned. You are a Miko. Your powers would be unpleasant for us and may cause a panic in the castle. Perhaps the latter option is preferable for now."

Kagome nodded slowly and said, "I'll show you, but I can't give it to you. It isn't safe for anyone to have it. Not even you, my lord," she adds, looking down at her hands. She knows she's probably saying too much, but she's been through so much for this stupid rock already. It messed up her academic life and stole what was left of her childhood. She isn't going to let it ruin any past besides her own.

"You're a brave one, Miko," Inu no Taisho says and she can't tell if it's a rumble of approval or a growl in his voice. "Show me the jewel and I will be the judge of what I might possess."

Kagome looks to the demoness, who stares coolly back at her. There is a cold curiosity in her large eyes and mirth like an untold joke at the corners of her mouth. Kagome looks to Sesshoumaru, who is as expressionless as stone, as immobile as ice. Very faintly, and so subtly that she would not have noticed it if she were not looking for it, he nods his head.

With trembling fingers, Kagome fishes the jewel out of the front of her robes and holds it out in the palm of her hand. She takes a steady breath, closes her eyes, and reaches out with her spiritual power, prodding the jewel awake.

There is a sharp intake of breath on the raised platform, followed by a low, warning growl. Kagome tamps her power back down, closing it around the jewel, forcing it back into submission. She hides it back down the front of her kimono and only then does she dare to look up. The growl has not stopped.

The edges of Inu no Taisho's stripes are ragged and his breathing is labored. He is not smiling, but staring fixedly at where the jewel is hidden over Kagome's hammering heart. Beside him, Sesshoumaru's teeth are bared, a low growl rumbling from his throat. The demoness's claws have sunk into the tatami matt on either side of her and her eyes flash red in the dim light.

Eventually Inu no Taisho slumps back and his signature smile fixes itself over his features. "That's some bauble you've got there, kiddo!" He says jovially.

Beside him, his mate smooths her hands down the length of her kimono, picking at invisible lint.

At last, the growl dies out.

"Sesshoumaru," says the Inu no Taisho, turning to face his son for the first time, "I congratulate you on your catch. You have indeed added strength to our pack."

* * *

Eventually, the human girl is lead away for the evening by a servant, yawning and rubbing her eyes, and Sesshoumaru turns to face his parents. If he were the type of son to question his parents' decisions, he would do so now. But he is not, and so instead he sits and waits patiently to hear their thoughts.

"What an interesting girl," says his mother. "Her manner of speech is so strange. Where is she from?"

"She would not say. All she would tell me was that she is from very far away and the jewel allows her to move between her home and our lands through a well. But it seems as though the well will not let her through now that the jewel is completed again."

"Well, that's a good thing, then!" Says his father, like it settles everything.

"Father?" It's all the question he'll let himself ask.

"She has to stay here, of course, Sesshoumaru," replies the older demon. "We cannot have a power like that running around loose. What would we do if that jewel fell into the hands of, say, the Panther tribe? You felt what it could do. What a demon could be capable of with it."

"She says that it cannot be used. That it leads to madness."

"I don't doubt that," murmurs his mother, still wrapped up in her own thoughts. "Power as great as that obtained as easily as stealing a stone from a girl is enough to drive anyone mad."

"So it's settled. She'll remain here."

"As a prisoner," Sesshoumaru says it flatly, but both of his parents hear it for the accusation it is.

"Of course not! I am not a cruel lord, despite what your mother might say!" Inu no Taisho laughs at his own joke, but he is the only one who does. "She will have all that she requires and freedom to roam about the palace as she wills. She will want for nothing. I daresay it is more than most of her kind ever see."

"A gilded cage, then." Says Sesshoumaru and then, before either of his parents can protest, "If you will excuse me," he says and gets smoothly to his feet, "I will retire for the evening."

Kagome is awakened in the morning when Kurumi brings a tray of breakfast.

"Everything's delicious," she says as Kurumi folds up her futon and secures it in the closet.

"Firefly squid is a local specialty," Kurumi says shyly.

"That must be why it tastes so fresh!" Kagome said cheerfully. "Anyway, thank you so much for bringing so many different outfits! They're all so beautiful—I don't know what to pick!" She admires the folds of cloth elegantly laid out across the floor.

"Perhaps this yukata would be best for today? Paired with this obi, perhaps?" suggests the kitsune, her tails low and swishing back and forth.

"Oh, Kurumi!" coos Kagome, her hands flying to either side of her face. Breakfast is all but forgotten in the presence of beautiful clothes. "It's stunning."

* * *

Kurumi has just finished tugging the knot of her obi into place when the door slides open. Both females look up to see Sesshoumaru looking impassively at them. "Miko," he says by way of greeting. He is wearing a forest-green robe today.

Immediately Kurumi bows low, but Kagome just puts her hands on her hips. "What would you have done if I had been changing?" she demands.

A minute raising of his eyebrows shows surprise. "Would a different course of action have been required?"

"Of course!" she says, throwing her hands in the air, "Don't you have any sense of decency?"

"When it comes to humans? No. Anyway, you are dressed. Come."

"Hold on, what do you mean, 'Come'? I'm not some pet you can order around, you know. Who do you think I am—Jaken?"

"Who is Jaken?" he asks.

She catches herself before she says anything else. "He's…a friend. Look, it doesn't matter. Just knock next time, ok? Please?" She gives him a small smile.

He considers this for a long time and then nods once. "Come," he says again.

"I shouldn't bring my bow, right?" she asks as she trips out of the room behind him.

* * *

"My goodness she can _talk_ , can't she?" sighs his mother over dinner that evening.

"Who can?" Asks his father, who spent all day arranging things for tomorrow's festivities. "Who can talk?"

"The little Miko—Kagome, I think she said her name was. Sesshoumaru spent all day showing her around the castle," says his mother.

He stares at her. She flashes a grin back at him.

His father looks at him, curious. "You spent all day with her? Showing her around? A _female_?"

"A human female," corrects his mother, "He showed her the garden and the stables. From what I could see, she was taken with the flowers but not thrilled by the silkworm collection. It was hardly courting behavior. And from what I could tell, she was the one doing most of the talking."

"She has much to say," says Sesshoumaru eventually.

His mother huffs an exasperated sigh. "Well, what did she _talk_ about, pup? I'm dying to know."

"You will have to ask her yourself," he replies and grabs another thin slice of meat from his plate.

She sets her cup down with a dramatic sigh. "You are _impossible_ sometimes, Sesshoumaru."

"Keep it up, pup," says his father, flashing him a grin, "The more you make your mother dig for answers, the less time she'll spend plotting to overthrow me."

She raises her eyebrow at her husband. She smiles, but both males can see the fuse has been lit and if left to smolder it will soon lead to an explosion. "Surely you should know by now, Touga, if I wanted you out of my way, you would already be gone."

"Ah, Sesshoumaru," says Touga, who has never been very good at subtly changing the subject, "Will you be leaving again tomorrow? Not that I mind having you at home, of course, but you never stay for long."

"Or will you be staying longer this time?" asks his mother, who is more curious than she is short-tempered. "Is it because of the female?"

"Hnnn." He says and takes another bite so he doesn't have to answer.

* * *

When there is a knock at the door that evening, long after the dinner dishes have been cleared away, and just as Kurumi has finished redressing Kagome's injured shoulder and replaced her yukata, Kagome smiles at the stunned kitsune and sings out, "Come in!"

Sesshoumaru slides the door open and looks between Kagome and Kurumi. "Miko," he says in his normal greeting, "Come."

"Come where?" she asks, making no move to stand.

"The festivities begin tonight."

"I thought you said they were starting tomorrow," she replies, remaining seated on her cushion. Beside her, Kurumi's eyes are so wide with horror that they look like they're going to pop out of her head.

"Hnnn," he replies, "They shall, but you will not be permitted to attend once the other lords arrive. Come."

And she wants to argue, but curiosity gets the better of her and she follows him out into the hallway and down the many turns of the corridors. He doesn't speak and she's so wrapped up in trying to memorize every right and left they take that for once she doesn't speak, either.

At last, they come to a balcony and Kagome can't tell if it's the same one they entered on or if it's higher or lower, but she looks out over the night sky and the paper lanterns hung in the courtyard below them and she sighs.

"It's perfect weather for a festival," she says.

"Hnnn," he replies.

"I'm not going to be able to go because of the jewel, am I? Now that your parents know about it, it's too risky to let me get close to other demons, huh?"

He doesn't know what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything at all. He simply stares out at the demons milling about below them, yelling to one another, running around making last-minute preparations. Busy little creatures leading busy little lives.

"I'm not mad about it, you know," she says lightly. "I know they're doing it to keep everyone safe, even me. So I'm not mad."

His head snaps toward her at once. The moon is almost full and in its milky glow, she is a study in shadow and light. She is looking out over his father's kingdom and she is smiling gently. He inhales deeply, but there is no lie, no spite in her scent; only a deep sadness laid over the iron tang of her healing wound and the soft scent that he has come to recognize as hers. He almost doesn't believe her anyway. A cage is a cage and he cannot fathom being anything but furious when trapped.

 _Who carries a bow without arrows?_

"But you are sad," he presses aloud. He's picking at a scab and he knows it. He's running his tongue over a sore tooth but he's powerless to do anything else. "You don't want to be here."

"No," she says at last, "I don't. I miss my friends. I miss my family. There's so much I have to do; so much I'm missing. And I just know that they miss me, too. I can't stay here forever."

He doesn't know what to say to that, but thankfully he's saved from saying anything at all by the whistle and pop. Her head shoots to the sky just in time to see the first of the fireworks twinkle into darkness. "Oh!" she says, and she's smiling again, which he counts as a victory.

"It is only a practice run for tomorrow night," he says because he is not a liar.

"It's beautiful," her voice is hushed. Another whistle. Another pop. Another cascade of red light across the night sky. "Thank you, Sesshoumaru," she says in barely more than a whisper as the fireworks light up the night sky and sparkle against the blackness of the distant bay.


	4. Sunflowers - In the Eye of the Storm

Chapter 4 – In the Eye of the Storm

A/N: I'm borrowing a phrase from Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle in this chapter. The original phrase is, "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this…".

* * *

Apart from the _tap tap tap_ of rain against wood and paper, it's quiet when she wakes up. _The storm's caught up with us_ , she thinks and then she rolls onto her side and tries to remember what she was dreaming about. It doesn't matter, she knows that; more often than she's comfortable admitting she still has nightmares about being unprepared for math tests, despite the fact that she's just over a year out of school now.

Eventually, she drags herself into a sitting position, wincing when she accidentally puts too much pressure on her shoulder, but it's more out of habit than actual pain.

 _I really need to ask Kurumi what's in that poultice she uses_ , Kagome tells herself. She's been patching people together for four years now and she's learned to hoard remedies and recipes like a field medic or one of those weird people who goes foraging for fun.

When she slides open the window and looks out at the world, she _still_ has no idea what time it is. The sky is a uniform gray and the rain falls steadily as far as she can see. So, she takes a minute to enjoy the view. Her room looks out over a few blocks of low roofs (nobody moving on the narrow dirt streets between them, but there is no sign of the festivities on this side of the compound, so no one in the streets doesn't tell her much) and beyond those rises a wall of sharpened spikes. In the distance, is a wild tangle of deep-green foliage. The snow-capped mountains are giants holding up the gray dome of the sky.

This isn't Tokyo. This isn't even a place she's visited on a class trip or on vacation. Even in her time, getting over the mountains is a pain and nobody comes out this far without actually meaning to. She has no idea how she'll get home.

She takes a deep breath of fresh air. It's cold and it's crisp and it makes her feel more alive. She sets a broad smile on her face. It's fake and it's forced but it makes her feel happier anyway.

 _There's nothing saying I have to stay in here_ , she reasons. Sure, Inu no Taisho might have mentioned that she wasn't supposed to wander around at the festival, but no if they think that meant she'd be content to entertain herself in a single room, they have another thing coming.

She does some morning stretches and then changes from the jinbei she wore to sleep into the yukata she wore yesterday and steps out into the hallway.

She opens doors at random, finds two other rooms just like hers and a storage room filled with futons and folded cloth. She wanders until she finds the staircase and she trips down a few floors and decides to wander there next. She opens the first door she finds. It's someone's room and she's sure that someone spends a lot of time here; a woman, if she's any judge. There's a tall bronze mirror stacked on top of a carved black lacquered box that's covered in haphazardly placed combs and strings of beads. An ornately painted six-panel byobu in one corner, depicting four great white dogs against a gold background. In the center of the room is a rumpled futon. She's just glad the room's empty. That could have been very awkward.

As quietly as she can, she slides the door shut and pads back toward the staircase but as she turns the last corner, she almost runs into someone.

"Oh dear!" Kagome says as she sidesteps the person at the last second, "I'm so sorry!" She realizes that she isn't being quiet and she slaps a hand over her mouth. She looks up at the face of the person she almost hit and her blood freezes in her veins.

Sesshoumaru's mother, elaborately dressed in a magnificent kimono, is standing front of her. She smiles without showing her teeth. Her face is powdered. Her hair, piled high on her head and trailing past the elegant knot of her obi, is perfectly smooth and kept in place by a handful of shining, well-placed golden pins.

"Ah," Kagome says, her face reddening. She bows low at the waist, her unkempt, unbrushed hair flopping over her shoulders. "Good morning, my lady!" she says with all the energy she can summon while simultaneously trying to keep her voice quiet. "I am so, so sorry for almost running into you! I didn't know you were there. Ma'am!" She layers on all the formalities she can, hoping that they're enough.

The wife if Inu no Taisho coughs quietly and Kagome looks up, confused and worried and still blushing scarlet in her embarrassment.

The lovely demoness has the edge of her kimono over her mouth but Kagome can see the fold in her stripes and at the corners of her eyes that mean she's covering another laugh.

Kagome drops her face again, just in case this is something she isn't supposed to notice. She stares at the shining wood between her bare feet and regrets leaving her room.

"Well I must say," says the demoness in a voice like the tinkling of bells, "Your speech is strange but your manners are better than I thought they'd be. Your deference is noted. You may rise."

Kagome straightens, anxiously patting at her hair. "Thank you," and then she searches in the corners of her memory for anything that might be a proper enough way to end the sentence and eventually gives up and goes for a generic, "My lady."

"Hnnn," replies the demoness, a delicate finger tapping against her jaw. "What should I call you, Miko?"

"Oh, um, Kagome is fine." Pause. "My lady."

"Lovely. You will join me for breakfast, Kagome. Come."

Kagome follows as the demoness swings around and heads toward the staircase, taking care not to walk so close that she might tread on the trailing hem of the beautiful kimono.

Thankfully they only go down one more floor and down two corridors before they arrive in a long room where one breakfast tray has already been laid out.

"Mitsuki," says the demoness, not even bothering to raise her voice.

"Yesssss, my lady," says a soft voice so close that Kagome jumps at it. She turns to see a white-faced demoness with vertical green stripes studding her pointed chin and peeping out under her lime-green bangs. Her narrow eyes are all green, split by a sliver of black pupil. Her wild green hair was spread like a fan behind her face and was chopped at the base of her striped neck, stopping just above a simple brown yukata.

As if she can feel Kagome's stare, her eyes swing away from her mistress and pin the human girl in place. She licks her lips with a forked tongue. Kagome swallows thickly and squirms under the unblinking stare.

"Bring another tray," says the lady of the castle as if she hasn't noticed the hungry look the servant is giving Kagome.

The snakelike swings away from Kagome, "What do humansssss eat, my lady?" She still hasn't blinked.

"Kurumi has some experience with humans, I've been told. Ask her."

"Yessss, my lady," hisses the demoness, bowing low and shuffling backward out of the room.

After the door slides shut, Kagome takes a breath she didn't realize she was holding.

"Custom dictates that your head is never higher than mine," says the Lady's voice, "Come, Kagome. Sit. Mitsuki will bring your breakfast soon enough."

Obediently, Kagome slides in on the opposite side of the table. After a few minutes of silence, Kagome is a nervous, fidgeting mess, but she chews her bottom lip to keep from talking. She's got a suspicion that if the Lady wants to talk, she'll choose the subject.

Once the silence has stretched for so long that Kagome has started to think that there really _won't_ be any conversation, the demoness sets down her chopsticks and says, "So tell me about where you come from."

"Well," Kagome says, trying to sift between what she can say and what she can't, "Where I come from, there aren't many demons. It's almost all humans."

"And how do you live? How do you pass your days?"

"The jewel's been keeping me busy for the most part. I've been, er, looking after it for the last four years or so, which means I'm not the best example of how a girl typically spends her days."

"You have been traveling, then," says the demoness, her eyes alight with interest. "How would a girl typically spend her days?" she asks, parroting Kagome's strange word choice.

Kagome smiles as she thinks of her friends. "Most of my friends are in school now."

"School!" The demoness seems genuinely surprised by this. "It is usual for females to be educated in your homeland?"

"Yeah," Kagome replies, eagerly leaning forward, "Males and females are educated together, actually."

"How interesting!" She smiles at Kagome like she's indulging a child. "What sort of things do you learn?"

"We start with the basics when we're pretty small—reading and writing and math and stuff—and then—"

"You can _read_?" Breathes the demoness. Her perfectly painted mouth is a little _o_ of surprise.

"Oh, yes," Kagome colors in embarrassment. "It isn't so…"

But she trails off when the Lady stands and walks away from the table so quickly that her bare feet flash out from under the kimono, allowing Kagome brief glances of small, pointed claws on dainty, pale feet. She stops at a cabinet and slides back the door to reveal a stack of scrolls. After a moment's consideration, she picks one and bustles back to the table.

Unfurling the scroll to the side of her now-forgotten dishes, she turns it around so that it's facing Kagome. "Here," she says, jabbing a claw at a line of text, "Can you read this?"

The scroll is all kanji, and there are some characters she doesn't know, but with the Lady's occasional gentle corrections, she reads out the entirety of the scroll, which turns out to be a rather boring informational scroll about the fluctuating prices of rice.

They take a break when Mitsuki bows back into the room with a tray for Kagome, piled high with rice and slices of fish so thin that they are translucent.

"And you are not a noble?" Asks the Lady as she resumes her own chopsticks.

Kagome shakes her head. "No," she says between bites of rice. "Well, my family owns a shrine, but that's it. It's normal where I come from to be able to read. Almost everyone can do it."

The demoness's yellow eyes shine even brighter and she sighs. "Would that I could see such a thing!"

"Ah," says Kagome, "It wouldn't be very easy to take you there."

"No, of course," is the prompt reply. "Sesshoumaru mentioned that your means of travel is broken." Her yellow eyes drop to the collar of Kagome's yukata. "It is the jewel that allows you to travel between our land and yours?"

"Yep."

"Then when your means of transport has been repaired, you will take me to this land where everyone can read." It's said like a command, but the Lady looks shyly under her silver eyelashes at Kagome as if it were a question.

"Maybe," Kagome says, and her stomach twists with guilt because she knows that if she can get the well working again, she'll never come back here. And she already knows there are no demons where she comes from. The Lady will probably never see Tokyo.

"Show me the jewel." And this time, it's said like the command it is.

Kagome's hand flies protectively to it.

"I will not touch it," the Lady tosses her head as if annoyed. "But I know stones. I would like to see if I can answer the riddle of yours."

Reluctantly, Kagome pulls the necklace over her head and holds in out on the flat of her palm.

There is a hissing intake of breath, but the demoness's eyes do not waver even when they bleed red. Kagome watches in rapt horror as her face begins to elongate, her fangs dropping down over her jaw.

The jewel grows warm in Kagome's hand. She can feel it blackening even as she held it, her own powers rising up to purify it. A war is being waged in the palm of her hand; a battle of ancient wills.

But then, just when Kagome is sure that the demoness will lose control, she turns away from the jewel, breathing heavily as her features returned to normal, her hands flat against the tatami.

"That," pants the demoness, "Is a very troubled jewel. It is not a rock, is it? It is made of…something other than stone. It was screaming out for me. It had…many voices."

Kagome bites her lip, unsure what to say, but the Lady holds up a silencing hand before she can even decide which words to use.

"No," says the Lady, "There are some things that it is better not to know. Unhappy is the creature whose duty it is to hold that jewel. Put it away, Miko. I do not want to see it anymore."

Obediently, Kagome replaces it under her robe.

After a few minutes, while the demoness's breathing evens out, Kagome ventures, "But you resisted it." She thinks about all the demons she had ever know who had not tried to take at least a piece the jewel from her. The list is remarkably short. "That's very rare."

The Lady lets out a quick, hollow laugh. "It is nothing to resist that which one does not truly want."

"You don't want power?" Kagome asks, genuinely surprised.

The demoness eyes her seriously for a while and then smooths an automatic hand over her still perfect hair. "You are wrong, little Miko. Power— _true_ power—is all I desire. But the jewel cannot give that to me."

"Who can, then?" Kagome asks, unable to stop the question from burbling past her lips.

The Lady's lips quirk up in a small, humorless smile. "My subjects. Now enough of this serious talk. We are both fairly intelligent creatures. Perhaps you bring from your land something that could entertain me more than your terrible jewel."

"Like what?" asks Kagome, picking at her rice. Her appetite's gone but she has been raised to eat every bite on her plate.

"Riddles, of course."

* * *

He follows her scent all the way down to his mother's personal dining room, his nervousness growing with every step, but before his hand can reach the door, he freezes.

The airy sound of his mother's laugh floats out to him.

"Oh, you clever little thing! How marvelous," she says, "Now listen to mine: I come at night without being fetched and I leave in the morning without being stolen. What am I?"

Sesshoumaru can feel the smile tugging up at the corners of his mouth as his worry vanishes. This is one of his mother's favorites; she has told it since he was very small. He knows the answer as well as he knows his name. He waits. He listens.

Eventually, in a small voice, "Stars?" is the Miko's hesitant guess.

"Exactly!" His mother crows. And then, "You may come in now, pup."

Sesshoumaru schools his features back into a neutral expression and slides the door open. The Miko is looking at him in confusion and his mother hides her smile behind the sleeve of her Kimono. The table is still littered with the remnants of their breakfasts.

"Good morning," says Kagome.

"Have you come to join our little game?" asks his mother, her eyes shining brightly.

 _Who carries a bow with no arrows?_

"No," he says.

"Have you come to take my dining partner away from me?"

"Hnnn."

"And what if I do not want to let her go?" She tilts her head gently to the side when she says it and he is immediately on guard.

"Hnnn," is all he says. He tries to keep his face blank, but his eyes narrow slightly.

"I am only playing, Sesshoumaru," she says, although he knows that she is not. "You needn't be so serious all the time. Run along now, Kagome," she says with a wave of her hand. "You are dismissed."

* * *

"Your mother's wonderful" says the human as soon as they've closed the sliding door.

"She can still hear you," he replies.

"And I thank you for your kind words," comes the voice of his mother.

She blushes slightly at this but, after a few minutes, she recovers what he has come to think of as her usual sunny demeanor. "Where are we going?" she asks.

"To the hatchery," he replies and leads her to the inner courtyard.

* * *

The hatchery is furnace-hot, lit with four separate fires.

He pulls what looks like a large, golden stone from the brazier farthest from the door with his bare hands. She yelps but when she sees that he is unharmed, she wipes away the sweat that has beaded on her brow and approaches.

"I would _kill_ for a bath," she mumbles to herself and then, catching sight of what's in his hands, "This is a dragon's egg?" she asks breathlessly. Her hands hover over the egg cupped between his hands. She can feel the heat radiating off of it and cannot understand how he is unharmed. The egg glitters. It is about as big as she imagines an ostrich egg might be.

"Hnnn." He replies.

"How long to dragons live?"

He is surprised by the question. "Quite some time," he says slowly, carefully watching her face, "It takes about three hundred years for them to reach maturity. They age very slowly."

She smiles to herself. "Someday," she says quietly, "You will travel with a two-headed dragon. I wonder if this will be them."

He sniffs delicately. "You are certain." It's an observation, not a question.

Her smile grows wistful and her eyes are fixed on the surface of the egg but her gaze is far away. "Positive."

* * *

"But why don't the females—"

"Hinds," he corrects gently.

"Right. Why don't the _hinds_ spend any more time with their, er," she chews her lip.

They are still in the hatchery. The conversation has progressed from dragon hatching to dragon behavior. He isn't used to having someone to talk about this with. He is enjoying himself more than he thought he could in the presence of a female. "Fawns," he supplies.

"Right. Fawns. I mean, if they don't spend any time sitting on the eggs or anything, how do they keep it so hot?"

"Because—" he begins and then he pauses when he hears the distant yowls and the shouts and running feet of the guards they have stationed along the walls.

He sets the egg gently back in its fire and turns to the Miko, who is staring at him questioningly. "We must return," he says and slides open the door.

He knows what she will say before she even opens her mouth.

"Why?"

He is prepared with his answer. "The guests are arriving. Come," and he holds his hand out to her.

Although he cannot articulate to himself why it pleases him when she does not hesitate to put her hand in his.

* * *

"Kurumi," she says when the fox comes to collect her dinner dishes.

"Yes, m—Kagome-sama?" she replies dutifully while stacking dishes on the tray.

"How long will the guests stay?" She has been in her room all afternoon and evening. The rain has stopped now, but she is still not allowed to leave. The whistle, crackle, pop of fireworks begins.

"Seven days," Kurumi replies, looking shyly up at Kagome. "Why?"

"Honestly?" Kagome sighs, "Because I'm bored."

"If you'd like," Kurumi offers quietly, "I could stay with you a while."

"Oh, would you?" Kagome brightens instantly and claps her hands together. "That would be wonderful."

"If you'd like, I could tell you a story."

"You're a storyteller? That's amazing, Kurumi!"

"I-it's nothing, Kagome-sama. All kitsune learn to tell stories. Ah," her eyes widen as she hastens to correct herself, "It's something we learn from our parents when we are very young."

"Oh," Kagome deflates. She doesn't like to think that Shippo is missing out on an integral part of kistune-ness.

"If you'd like, Kagome-sama, I can tell you a story that all kitsune learn. If you remember it, you can tell it to him when you get home."

"Oh, would you really?" Her hands are clasped in front of her. Her heart is overflowing with gratitude. "That would be so wonderful! Thank you so much, Kurumi! You're such a good friend."

Kurumi smiles shyly. "I will tell you the story of How the Fox Tricked the Wolf."

"Oh! Ok! Great!" Kagome says and sits straight up in front of Kurumi, eyes bright with excitement and attentiveness.

Kurumi giggles softly. "Well, if we're to do this right, Kagome-sama, please make yourself comfortable." She sets the tray aside, crosses her legs and wraps her tails around her waist. Her eyes slide shut and she takes a deep breath in before she says, "My mother, who was the first kitsune—"

"Your mother was the first kitsune?"

Kurumi giggles again, opening one amber eye. "No, Kagome-sama. That is simply how all kitsune stories begin. When you tell your kit, you must begin it like this."

"Oh. Right. Sorry. Go ahead."

"My mother, who was the first kitsune, told me this…"

* * *

It's nice to see you again, Sesshoumaru," purrs Takahiro, the king of the panther tribe, reclining in his seat. His eldest daughter is seated on his right. His second eldest, on his left. Sesshoumaru doesn't pay either of them any attention, but he thinks it's strange that the panther king has brought his daughters with him on this trip. It has never happened like this before. "It has been many long years since you have graced our meetings with your presence."

Sesshoumaru inclines his head. His posture is rigid on his cushion beside his father. "It is nice to see you too, Takahiro," he replies, pointedly dropping the honorifics to match the panther's informal speech.

Beneath his bushy eyebrows, the panther's yellow eyes narrow.

"We are happy to have you here," says Toga before an argument can start. "You have traveled far. We are grateful for your presence and your generous gifts."

The panther territory is on an island to the south and east of the mainland and they have brought with them countless tropical flowers, which never bloom on Toga's lands. No one in the room mistakes the boast of grandeur for generosity. Sesshoumaru has never been good at these games; he has no patience for deceit.

"Yes, of course," but the cat will not be deterred, "Tell me, Sesshoumaru, will you be leaving tomorrow?"

"No." He replies coolly. He can feel his father stiffen beside him. _Good_ , he thinks. _If he does not want it discussed, then he should just take the jewel and let Kagome go_.

"Why not?" Asks Takahiro.

"Our son has taken in a pet. She's a rather clever little beast who requires much attention," says his mother before he can respond. "And accordingly, he will not be joining us after lunch." She does not look away from the panther king. Were he a dog, he would understand her stare as a threat, but because he is not, Takahiro's mind is already moving on.

"After lunch? Joining us where?"

"Well, I thought we might visit the land god's shrine and then perhaps Toga will show you our hatchery."

"The land god?" Takahiro shares a smile with each of his daughters. "Only one?"

The Lady smiles brightly. "Yes. Yours is the land of eighty-eight gods, is it not?"

"As well-informed as ever, my lady," the cat smiles lazily in return.

"But with quite a high turnover rate, or so I've heard. Always warring amongst themselves, are they not, Takahiro-san?"

Takahiro's smile fades but the Lady of the West continues before he has a chance to say anything. "In fact, if my sources are correct, your eldest son was selected as one of the land gods just last year when the old god was killed, was he not? Congratulations are in order. It is such a high honor for your house."

Takahiro's mouth curls up, but no one could mistake it for a smile. "Yes," he says evenly. If he had a tail, it would be twitching. "A true honor. He is the third to become a god in my family. We miss his presence; of course, but indeed, it is an honor."

And just like that, the dialog moves along without him. On the one hand, Sesshoumaru is displeased that his mother stopped him from telling their guests about Kagome's presence in their home, but on the other, he's somehow managed to escape from a tedious afternoon of political niceties.

The only question now is how will he pass the afternoon? His eyes drop to the thick bundles of yellow flowers on the table as the conversation washes over him.

* * *

The morning passes lazily. Kagome is yet again left to her own devices and Kurumi is too busy with preparations for the feast to tell her any more stories. To make matters even worse, it's warm and sunny outside, which means it's hot and humid inside, and Kagome isn't even supposed to open the windows, although Kurumi's reasoning for the command was scattered and stammering and basically amounted to _Inu no Taisho said so and whatever he says is law._

By the time the lunch tray arrives, Kagome has tried on every yukata, tried to tie her obi four different ways, explored every drawer and cabinet in her room, arranged all of her clothes by color and then by pattern, and taken a brief nap.

"Thank goodness you're here!" Kagome sighs, rolling up into a seated position. "I'm _dying_ of boredom! I—" but her speech cuts off when the door slides open and does not reveal Kurumi.

"Sesshoumaru!" She says, smiling up at him and then, her expression clouding over instantaneously, "What did I say about knocking? Anyway, I'm glad you're here. How are things going with the guests?"

He considers how he could answer for a long moment before he says, "Painfully dull."

She is so surprised by the honest answer that a laugh escapes before she can stop herself. "I'm sorry to hear that!"

"Hnnnn. So, we are escaping. Come."

He holds his hand out to her and he is pleased that she takes it before she asks, "Escaping? What do you mean?"

"We will not be missed for a few hours. Now silence. It will not serve our purposes to draw attention to ourselves."

And then he is leading her down the hallway and through the sliding door onto the balcony. She squirms excitedly as the cloud forms beneath them but she does not speak until they are in the air.

"Where are we going?" She asks excitedly and, "Who are the guests? Are they really that boring? Oh, look down there! Does that road go all the way through the mountains?"

"Do not go so close to the edge. It would be difficult to explain to my father that you fell to your death." He says it evenly, but when she looks at his face, the quirk of his eyebrow and the softening of his eyes tells her that he's not completely serious.

She sticks her tongue out at him and wrinkles her nose, but she slides back until she's seated beside him on the cloud, her knees drawn up against her chest. "But seriously, how's it going with the guests?"

He runs a frustrated hand through his hair and sighs. "Fine, I suppose," he says. "I do not much care for diplomacy. It seems like a waste of time."

She regards him seriously, trying to find the answers to all the questions she can't ask in the arch of his cheekbones and the lines of his jaw. _He's familiar and strange,_ she thinks, _like a photograph of someone you know from before you met them_. And she can't say how he's different—besides the braided hair, of course—but she knows that he's different. The difference, she suspects, isn't anywhere on the surface, but somewhere just below it. There is some piece of him that's frozen stiff in the future or died off is still alive and moving. The Sesshoumaru she knows would never take her out for an afternoon, no matter how bored she was. But she doesn't want to think about that now, so instead she says, "Maybe it's just a matter of who it is you're entertaining."

"Hnnn." He agrees, "It is true that I do not care for the Panther tribe at the best of times."

And she jumps up so fast that she loses her footing and would have fallen off the edge of the cloud if Sesshoumaru's hand had not closed around her wrist and steadied her.

But she hardly seems to notice. "What is wrong," he demands. Fear and anger have overpowered her scent. He can hear the hammering of her small, mortal heart against her small, mortal ribs. Her pupils have dilated and her breathing is shallow. His hand is still around her wrist. "Tell me," he demands, giving her wrist a careful shake to get her attention.

"Nothing," she says and although she is lying he knows that she will not tell him the truth.

So, he has to guess. He replays the last few minutes of conversation in his head. "You know the panther tribe? Are you from their lands?" He has never been to the southern islands, but they sound familiar and strange, much like Kagome is. It almost makes sense.

Her pulse jumps but, "No," she says. "I'm from a lot farther away than that," she gives him a shaky smile. "I don't know the panther tribe. Not personally," _not if you don't count that one time they tried to sacrifice me to bring back their dead king_ , she adds in her head, _but that totally doesn't count. You have to know more than a name to know someone personally_. And she wouldn't even be able to tell you that at this point. Her little run-in with the panther tribe feels like ancient history now.

And then she realizes that _she's_ ancient history now.

"They have harmed someone you care for?" He guesses. "Have they eaten an acquaintance of yours?"

"Eaten someone I know?" She looks utterly scandalized. "That's horrible! No, of course not!"

And then he mentally runs over the humans he's sure he's eaten in his lifetime, mentally hoping that he's never eaten anyone she knows, either. But this isn't a line of thought he really wants to pursue, so he looks down and realizes that he was so concerned with the conversation they've been having that he has almost flow over what he was looking for.

He brings them down in a gentle landing and Kagome is speechless as she looks around.

They are surrounded on all sides by a riot of tall yellow flowers. He watches as she spins slowly on the spot, eyes wide and cheeks flushed.

"But…how?" she asks in barely more than a whisper, like talking too loud might scare them all away.

"There are places like this in the mountains," he explains, gesturing vaguely to the edge of the plateau and the taller mountains in the distance. "These places get more sun than most, and so flowers bloom earlier and grow taller."

"It's amazing," she says. A breeze blows around them and the sunflowers nod and bend like an endless sea of yellow faces.

Kagome lets out a whoop of pure joy so suddenly that it startles him and then she takes off running through the waist-high plants.

And Sesshoumaru does what any good dog would do in this situation: He runs after her.

She looks back at him. He's catching up to her and with a high giggle, she runs even faster, zigzagging through the stalks, but he is much faster than she is and it is not long before he overtakes her. In a single elegant leap, he is in front of her. She screeches and laughs, stumbling backwards.

He catches her before she topples over, but once she's back on her feet, she takes off in the opposite direction, laughing loudly. Once she is a few yards ahead of him, she pauses and looks back over her shoulder. Her chest is heaving, her hair is wild, but she is smiling.

He finds the corners of his lips tugging up in response as he tenses for another chase. "I will give you to the count of ten to get away."

"Ten?!" She echoes. "Come _on_! That's no fair at all! You're way too fast! Give me until thirty."

"Hnnn."

"And close your eyes."

"Hnnnn."

"Is that a yes or a no? Hey! Are your eyes shut?"

"One, two, three…"

And he is rewarded by the hush of her taking off at a run between the waves of yellow flowers.

* * *

The sun is just starting to kiss the rim of the mountains when Sesshoumaru lands the cloud on the appropriate floor of the inner palace, and he knows at once that they are not alone.

"Sesshoumaru," says his mother as she effortlessly emerges from the shadows.

Kagome yelps in surprise.

"Mother," he replies.

She does not stop until she is standing in front of him and then she rises onto tip toes. Sesshoumaru's eyes slant toward Kagome.

"I hardly think she'll be surprised," his mother says lightly, "You will greet your mother properly, pup."

Kagome watches with interest as Sesshoumaru ducks his head to run his nose against his mother's and then touches his forehead briefly to hers. The Lady of the Western Lands inhales deeply, her eyes sliding shut.

In that half a heartbeat, Kagome sees in her the same love and relief she sees on her own mother's face every time she returns from a trip to the past and the wave of homesickness that washes over her is so strong that she is surprised to find she is still standing when it passes. Her stomach aches when she thinks about how far away her mother is, how far away her friends are. There are so many years between them that she can hardly keep track of them all. She is an impossibly small thing adrift and out of place on the expansive sea of time and she cannot see the shore.

"There is an inconvenience," Sesshoumaru's mother says, "But I'm sure it will be fine."

"What's wrong?" Asks Kagome, her brows knitting together in concern.

"Unfortunately, our esteemed guests noticed the, ah, smell of human in the hatchery when the Inu no Taisho took them out to see the eggs this afternoon."

"What of it?" Sesshoumaru asks coldly. "It makes no difference."

"Ah, yes, but Takahiro decided to ask one of the servants why we were not keeping our hatchery properly secured."

"And?" Sesshoumaru's voice is barely more than a growl.

"Mitsuki was not aware that Kagome's presence was a secret."

Her voice is so light and so sweet that even Kagome knows it isn't genuine. She is glad that she is not Mitsuki tonight.

"Hnnnn," it is a growl now. Sesshoumaru cracks the knuckles of his left hand.

"Do not be hasty, pup," says the lady, raising a hand to her son's shoulder. "There is no reason for anyone to think anything of a demon lord keeping a human as a pet."

"A pet?" Kagome splutters, finding her voice at last. "I'm not a pet!"

"They will know as soon as they sense the presence of the jewel," says Sesshoumaru, who already understands what his mother is saying.

"Only if the jewel is with her when they meet."

Kagome looks from one dog demon to the other and her hand rises of its own accord to the jewel around her neck. "I can't leave it just anywhere," she says slowly.

"Of course not, but we do not have much time. We all saw your return and I have informed our guests that I would come up here to fetch you. They expect our return presently."

"And if we refuse?" growls Sesshoumaru.

"We?" She echoes and raises a perfect eyebrow. "Anyway, then the result may be war," replies the demoness smoothly. "Trade with Takahiro has been poor for more than a decade and the majority of his ports are on Ryukotsusie's land, not ours. He does not need much reason to abandon our alliance."

Kagome's sharp gasp draws both sets of glittering golden eyes. Kagome thinks about what this means. She knows about the wars fought against the panther tribe and for the first time, she wonders if her presence here isn't a mistake after all. Perhaps she is here to keep the war from breaking out. She thinks about all the deaths she has seen over the years; all of the injured she was powerless to help. "And you think that if they meet me, they'll feel better?" she asks.

"Who can say?" says the demoness, a small smile on her painted face. "You are a charming little creature. You will at least be an interesting diversion."

"Alright. I'll do it."

The demoness's smile widens, but it does not extend as high up her cheeks as her magenta stripes. "Excellent."

"But if I bring the jewel, then the whole 'harmless pet' angle is kind of busted, huh?"

The demoness looks confused at first but then, "I…think so," she says slowly, "I confess that I am unfamiliar with some of the words you use, but it would be prudent to leave the jewel in your chamber while introductions are made."

Kagome fingers the jewel. She doesn't like the idea of leaving it alone.

"It is unwise to leave an object of power like this unguarded," says Sesshoumaru. There is a jaw muscle tensed in his cheek that betrays his displeasure.

Strangely, knowing that he is as unhappy about this as she is makes it easier for her to lift the jewel over her head. "Alright," she says with more bravery than she feels, "Let's drop this thing off so we can get this over with."

* * *

The demon reclining on the cushions opposite Inu no Taisho is not what she expected. In retrospect, she isn't sure why it never occurred to her that the panther king might be able to take on a human form the way Sesshoumaru's family could. After all, all the panther children looked human enough; it would only make sense for their king to be able to do the same.

But it has never occurred to her before, and so when she looks at the demon spread catlike across the cushions, she finds herself staring at his deeply tanned skin and the elegant, dark brown stripes that paint his eyelids and reach back in a horizontal line all the way to his pointed ears. His hair is short-cropped and brown. Only the yellow cat eyes betray his true feline nature, but there is something predatory in his lazy smile that reminds her of the way Buyo looks when he's just eaten a particularly large meal.

"You must be Sesshoumaru's little pet," he purrs. "A _female_. No one said you were a female. Can you speak, human female?"

"Takahiro," it is Inu no Taisho who speaks first. "So, familiar with what is mine. If I did not know better, I might be insulted." His lopsided grin never budges.

"Now why would you be insulted by a thing like that, Toga? Your taste doesn't run to humans too, does it?"

"Would you like some more sake, Takahiro?" Says the demoness, kneeling in front of the large sake pitcher.

"Yes," he replies, but his eyes do not leave Kagome. "But I want the human to pour it."

Sesshoumaru cracks his knuckles.

"No, of course!" Kagome says before anyone can protest, smiling at the demon lord. She wants to keep a peace that won't be broken for hundreds of years. She knows it might not work, but she at least has to try. "I'd be happy to!"

* * *

Darkness has long ago fallen when Kurumi knocks hesitantly on Kagome's door.

"Kagome-sama?" she calls softly and then, when there is no answer, "Kagome-sama, I've brought your dinner." Where there is no answer still, she slides the door open and nervously pokes her head into the room.

"Kagome-sama?" she tries to raise her voice. Her tails are tucked low.

She can't see the human and she can't smell her, but she does sense a presence in the room.

"Kagome-sama?" she tries one last time. She worries her hands together, unsure what to do. She was told to bring a dinner tray up to their human guest, and she doesn't want to return without fulfilling her duty. After several long moments of hesitating in the doorway, she decides to bring the tray into the room. _That way Kagome-sama can eat whenever she returns. Perhaps she is still out with the young master._ "E-excuse me, then!" she says to the room at large and, summoning all the courage she can, she enters the room behind the try.

As soon as she is inside, she sees it.

It doesn't look like anything much at first; just the strange charm she has seen Kagome wearing, but the longer she stares at the strange pink jewel, the brighter it seems to grow. Surely it wouldn't hurt to take a closer look, would it? She sets the tray down and picks up the jewel.


	5. At the Beach- What the Water Said

Chapter 5: What the Water Said

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,  
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,  
and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned."  
-William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"

* * *

Kagome is in the process of pouring another cup of sake for the panther king when she feels it. The jug drops from her hands and clatters to the floor, sake leaking into the tatami, but she doesn't notice it. Her eyes are blind with panic.

The panther king lets out a cry of disgust as sake soaks the front of his ornately-detailed kimono.

The Inu no Taisho laughs like this is the funniest thing he's seen all day.

"Kagome?" The Lady sounds alarmed.

Sesshoumaru is beside her already, a claw-tipped hand hovering just above her arm, his eyes full of questions he does not know how to ask.

Her wide, scared eyes meet his and, "The jewel," she breathes. She can feel it blackening from here. She can feel it changing and rising into the air and, "I have to—" she begins, but she never has the chance to finish.

The scream is like nothing Kagome has ever heard before. It is a woman's screech, but it's not. It's like an animal's snarl, but it's not. It's familiar and foreign in all the wrong ways and it sets her teeth on edge and raises the fine hairs on the back of her neck. There is groaning of timbers and a clattering of splintering wood and the scream rips through the air again. It's higher up and farther out. It echoes between the mountains and the bay and there are answering screams from other, more human voices.

Before she even has time to react, the Inu no Taisho, his eyes bright with a terrible, predatory light Kagome has only ever seen in thoughtless beasts, lets out a low, rumbling bark, and all three dog demons are gone in streaks of light that burn yellow trails on her retinas. A few seconds later, the panther lord, a growl rumbling low in the back of his throat and his short brown hair standing straight up, is through the open door on fast feet.

Kagome feels like she's running in slow motion but eventually, she gets to the door. The stone courtyard in front of the palace is crowded with demons. Some look human and some don't, but she can't see anything over the tails and tall heads so she runs back inside and takes the stairs two at a time. When she finally climbs all the stairs to her room, she isn't surprised by the massive hole in the wall. She can hear raised voices far below her, but the dark sky and the darker mountainside are free of demons. There's a stitch in her side and she takes a moment to catch her breath and pick up her bow.

The scream rips through the air again and she's out the door, pelting down the hallway, and throwing open the door to the balcony that overlooks the water. In the distance, there is a crescent of white sand that runs the rim of the bay and beyond that, dark water glitters. Far out over the sea, a streak of electric-blue fox fire darts back and forth, toward the shore and out to sea, running across the air. In the light of the flame, seen only when they get too close, are three white dogs.

Kagome can feel the jewel, calling to her like it is the part of her soul that is missing. It is black, black, black. There is no hope for it, not a single drop of purity left, and Kagome's heart aches for it.

The fox screams again, loud and long, and Kagome knows there's no sense left in her. Whoever the fox was before—and she hopes and prays that she doesn't know them—is gone. Only a beast remains. It is much too far out to shoot.

Out there, running low over black waves, one of the dogs—and she can't tell which one—lets out a high yip as their quarry changes direction. Another dog barks, breaking off into a quick howl, and then the third dog (she wishes she could tell who was who, but it's impossible in the dark) collides against the darting fox's flank. The fox screams again, higher and longer and they barrel together into the sand. At the beach, beside the dark waves, Kagome can just make out a tangle of flailing limbs and Foxfire. She can hear the growling and snapping from here. But then the sounds change. The Foxfire flames bright black and the dog stumbles backward with a yelp of pain. The black fire goes with it and all at once the fox vanishes and the dog crashes into the ocean, still yelping in pain.

In the sudden darkness, Kagome can still see the outline of the fire against the backs of her eyes, but she can see nothing in front of her. She can, however, feel the jewel getting fainter and fainter, the tug getting farther and farther away.

"Quite the show," rumbles a low voice behind her and she whirls around to see the panther lord in the doorway. His eyes are flashing, his canines are long. She does not like the way he is looking at her, but she cannot say why. "Don't you agree?"

Kagome's hand tightens around her bow and she retreats until her back is pressed against the railing. "Stay back," she warns.

"No," purrs the panther demon, "I think all this excitement has got me a little bit hungry. And you know what? I think my hosts were kind enough to provide me with an easy snack."

"There's plenty to eat in the kitchen," she says with a bravery she doesn't feel. She can feel her power stir and thrum under the surface of her skin. The jewel's departure has her instincts on edge already, but she doesn't want to hurt the panther if she can help it. _I'm on a mission of peace!_ she whines in her head, _Why can't everyone else just be peaceful for once!_ "I'm sure Mitsuki or someone will—"

"I think," the panther's tone is lazy. He takes a slow step forward that makes no sound. "I want something fresher."

And he lunges at her.

She raises her hands—still clutching the bow—to protect her face and ward off the imminent attack, but at the same instant, a wet snarl cuts the air and something white streaks past her. There is an explosion of splintering wood and ripping paper and when Kagome lowers her arms and looks into the new hole in the side of the building she sees Sesshoumaru, his again-humanoid back to her, facing off against the panther king, who stands tall in a relaxed posture, his yellow eyes fixed on the dog demon.

Sesshoumaru growls low in the back of his throat. Kagome can smell the acrid, ammonia odor that she recognizes immediately as Sesshoumaru's poison before she even looks down at his dripping claws, but, worryingly, the panther king doesn't seem bothered. Her hair is standing on end and when she moves she can feel the static snapping the air around her. She remembers the last time she fought the panther king and how easily he overwhelmed both Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru. Her breath catches in her throat. Sesshoumaru is not even wearing armor now.

And then the panther's eyes slant toward Kagome and he says, "Toga, call off your whelp if you want him to survive."

And at first Kagome is confused and then, from behind her comes the Inu no Taisho's rumbling voice. "Enough, Sesshoumaru," he says calmly and Kagome whips around to see him lounging unconcerned against the railing to her left, seemingly floating effortlessly in midair. "If Takahiro wanted her dead, she would have been killed long before we returned."

Sesshoumaru continues to growl but turns his face toward Kagome and his father. Kagome gasps. Even from here she can see the charred skin around his mouth, curling up his cheeks like a deranged smile where the Foxfire seared into his skin. His gaze bleeds red at the edges, his mouth trapped between forms. He is a wild thing; he is a beast; he is not human; he is not a thing she can recognize; he is not a thing she should trust. She recognizes him anyway. She trusts him anyway.

He takes a step backward. He straightens. The growl subsides.

"See?" says Toga, his lopsided grin fixed in place and the usual exposed fang shining like death in the darkness, "No problems at all. We're all such good friends, aren't we?"

"You brought death into your house and had it serve me drinks!" Says the panther. He is smiling too. Just like a cat who's just caught a spider and is excited to start taking off its legs one by one.

"You mean little Kagome?" He laughs like the rumble of distant thunder or the threat of an avalanche in silent mountains. "What harm could a human do?"

"She is a Miko," says the cat, "You knew." His claws lazily extend and contract as he flexes and relaxes his hands at his sides. Electricity crackles between his fingers.

"And if I did?" Toga raises a bushy eyebrow. It is a Sesshoumaru gesture with an Inuyasha feature. It's too strange to be real. "Is that why you attacked her, Takahiro? To be sure of what she was?"

"I found it strange that she knew about the power before even you did. I wouldn't have truly harmed her. You know that, despite what your whelp might think," his lazy grin slides to Sesshoumaru. "He seems very attached to his pet. A dangerous thing, an attachment like that. Breeds for weakness."

Toga looks at her coolly, appraisingly, although the smile never leaves. Neither of his sons has ever looked at her that way. Even when Sesshoumaru looks through her, she has never felt so small, so insignificant. And then his gaze returns to the panther king. "I will allow your anger but when you question the honor of my son, you question the honor of my pack. You imply that my son would take a human as a mate. If it came to that, I would kill her myself, but my son will do nothing of the sort. When my son takes a mate, she will strengthen our pack. When she bears pups, they will strengthen our pack, not weaken it. Sesshoumaru would not dilute the blood that way. Kagome is a pet. Nothing more. If you feel the overwhelming need to say such disgusting things again, Takahiro, I will kill you." He does not shout. He does not growl. He speaks calmly and quietly and Kagome doesn't know why, but that makes it so much worse.

Her heart is hammering in her chest and her eyes sting with unshed tears. She can't believe it. She won't believe it. She knows, knows, that someday he will feel differently. She knows for a fact that the time will come where Toga will give up his life for his human love and his hanyou child. But she doesn't understand it. How can this demon, speaking so casually of the line between demon and human, someday be her friend's father? For the first time, she is glad that Inuyasha never got to know Inu no Taisho. Perhaps it was a mercy that he died when he did. And she is so sorry for the thought that she starts crying.

Then Sesshoumaru is in front of her, so close that she can't see any of the building around his broad shoulders. His back is turned to her and he offers no verbal comment, but somehow, she gets the sense that he's protecting her. Even if he's protecting her from the wrong thing, it's such a sweet thought that she wipes the sleeve of her yukata across her eyes and resolves to be as stoic and brave as he is.

"And what of the other viper? Kurumi has never been so powerful before; she's never even had enough Foxfire to even fake a backbone. What treasure did you secret away in your little den? What have you been keeping from us other lords?"

 _So it was Kurumi after all,_ Kagome thinks, finally surrendering herself to the awful truth she wanted to deny. She can just imagine how it happened: Kurumi, coming to check up on her, maybe for another story or maybe with a tray of food, just happened to see the jewel lying there and…Kagome's heart beats faster in her chest and her palms begin to sweat. She bites her lip to keep from crying or screaming.

"What's this?" The panther king laughs. "I can smell the guilt on your human from here! I can only imagine what it must smell like to you dogs! That one isn't a good liar. You should have chosen your pet with more care. So you're in league with the humans, Toga. How troublesome."

"He isn't!" Kagome pokes her head around Sesshoumaru's elbow. "I brought the jewel here! Toga didn't even know about it until I showed up!"

"And now your human is managing even your diplomacies for you! Tell me, Toga, do you fetch as well? Do you walk nicely on a leash?"

"Hey!" Kagome says, hands on her hips, at the same time Sesshoumaru growls and tenses to spring.

It is then that a small ball of light whizzes past all of them, hovers for a moment in the center of the ruined porch, and then the Lady of the West materializes between them.

 _Her hair_ , Kagome can't help but note admiringly, _is still perfect._

"I lost her in the mountains," announces the demoness and then she looks around the assembled group. "Tensions are running high, I see," she observes casually. "Perhaps we should adjourn until tomorrow. Takahiro," she turns a smooth smile to the panther king, "I am sure that we can address your concerns in the morning, but for now, our castle has experienced a serious breach in security and we must discuss how to recover what has been taken from us. As I'm sure you're aware, this is a matter for the pack. Mitsuki will show you to your room, I'm sure."

Kagome looks around at the Lady. Surely she knows that Mitsuki isn't—

"Yessss, mistresssss," comes a soft sibilance from the shadows and Kagome jumps.

"How long has she been there?" Kagome whispers into Sesshoumaru's back, but everyone ignores her.

The snake demoness glides across the deck and bows low in front of the cat demon. "If it pleasesssss you, my lord," she hisses.

The panther king looks like he wants to say something else. The lazy smile says that he still wants to play and the flashing in his cat-like eyes says he still wants blood, but sense seems to win out in the end and, "Tomorrow, then. Lead the way, Mitsuki," he says.

After Takahiro is lead away, Sesshoumaru is surprised when Kagome turns at once to his mother and says, "Before you kick me out, too, I want you to know that I can sense the jewel. I'm going to try to get it back, and it'd be really great if we could do it together, but I'm going to try even if you say no." She folds her arms across her chest, winces when it pulls at her still-present injury and replaces her hands on her hips. "It's my responsibility, so it's my fault it's been stolen again. I can't just stay put and let someone else worry about it. Besides, if Kurumi can be saved, I'm the only one who can do it."

His mother blinks once, slowly, like she is bored, which he knows means she's intrigued. "Again?" she echoes, "This has happened before?"

Kagome looks down at her feet sheepishly. "Er, maybe once or twice."

"Well," says Toga jovially, as though he wasn't talking about killing her only a few minutes ago and making serious, overt threats at his erstwhile political ally, "At least this isn't an unusual situation! How has it been defeated in the past?"

 _Well it's never been resolved in the past,_ Kagome thinks, _Only in the future and one time I broke the jewel into teeny tiny pieces that we spent four years trying to put back together we STILL haven't managed to kill Naraku, so I don't know how much help I can be in the 'defeating' department._ But what she says is: "We find the jewel and I purify it." It's sort of true; that's what they did with the pieces, at least.

"How do you find it?" Asks the Lady.

"Oh, I can tell where it is," she replies and then amends, "If I'm close enough."

"With the jewel, she is a formidable opponent," says Toga, "but now that she is injured, it would not be impossible to overpower her if she is caught."

"She's injured?" Kagome's eyebrows draw together. She thinks about Kurumi's gentle smile, her nervous manner, the anxious tuck of her tails.

"She will recover," says Sesshoumaru, turning to look at her. When he speaks, the scabbed-over charred skin at the edges of his mouth cracks and bleeds and although it scabs over even as she watches, although she can see him healing, her heart aches for him. Her mouth aches where she is sure his must hurt, too, and this is when she realizes that she's truly come to think of Sesshoumaru as a friend. In less than a week trapped here in the past, despite the questionable kidnapping and all the strange, awkward conversations, young Sesshoumaru has managed to do what his older self has not managed in four years. Many things are the same. He is still strange, still aloof, and still prone to saying much too little. But he is not cold now. She wonders what he will lose between now and then that will turn him into the demon he will become. Her heart aches for that, too.

"So we must move quickly," says Inu no Taisho. "She will be harder to track if she is given time to recover."

"She cloaked both her flame and the power when we were in the mountains," says the Lady. "And I know not where she might go. Once we find where she is going, I think one of us could catch her easily, though."

"And once we are close enough, Kagome can dispose of her," Concludes the Lord, nodding his head and thudding a fist against the wood. "It is decided."

"Purify the jewel," corrects Kagome.

Inu no Taisho grins his lopsided, toothy smile. It has all the warmth it normally has but it does nothing to reassure her when, "All the better," he says, "We like to deal with thieves…personally."

"It would be best to leave immediately," says the Lady. "Come, Kagome, I will help you prepare for the trip."

And then she is being lead out of the room, too stunned by Inu no Taisho's coldness to even protest.

* * *

When the females are gone, Sesshoumaru turns to his father. "I will go," he says seriously. "This is my responsibility."

"Indeed," agrees the other demon with a nod of his head, "It is your fault. And I think this will be good practice for when you are Lord of the West. Assuming, of course, that you can keep your emotions under control."

Sesshoumaru bristles under the disapproving look, but he keeps his face carefully neutral. He cannot smile like his father can when furious, but he can at least betray nothing. "I do not know what you mean," he says flatly.

"You enjoy the company of the human female."

It stings like an accusation. "I found her. She is my responsibility." He says.

"Do not lie to me, pup," says Toga, his toothy smile glinting in the dim light, locking eyes with his son, "It is unbecoming."

"I never claimed that I found her company displeasing," sniffs Sesshoumaru. He does not look away, although he knows he should. "I enjoy her conversation."

"You will not mate with a human. I will not have hanyou in my pack."

Sesshoumaru actually snarls at this, unfurling a youki that, as propriety dictates, he normally keeps under control.

Toga snarls back, louder and longer. In a flash, he is nose to nose with his son, his eyes bleeding red as they bore into his son's. His youki crashes over Sesshoumaru, unfurling over and around them, crushing in on all sides. "You are young yet," he rumbles in a voice that only another dog could understand, "And I am still your alpha. You will obey me."

And although he doesn't want to, although his pride and instinct scream at him to fight even if he knows he will lose, Sesshoumaru breaks the eye contact first, looking away and baring his throat in submission. "I would not mate a human. I would not sire hanyou pups. I would bring no dishonor to our pack."

Toga backs away, his breathing returning to normal and his youki coiling tight about him once more. "I did not think you would," he says evenly, smiling once again, "But a father must make sure about these things. To tie your life to that of a human is a terrible thing. Just think how vulnerable it would make you!" He lets out a quick, barking laugh; as if the idea is funny. "Although I agree that Kagome is exceptional. Quite brave for a human and surprisingly friendly with our kind for a Miko. I wonder what sort of life has made her like this; what her country is like."

 _Who carries a bow with no arrows?_ his treacherous thoughts supply, and he still has no answer for it. "Hnnn," he agrees with a shallow nod.

"And she is young," continues his father, "and pretty, too. If you would like to—"

"I will do no such thing," he cuts in before his father can even finish his sentence. "I do not find her attractive. I merely appreciate her company."

His father raises his eyebrow again. "I am glad to hear it, pup," he says and turns away. The conversation is finished. "You will leave when she is ready. Stop by the Land God before you leave. He might have something useful to say."

* * *

"How often must humans bathe?" Asks the Lady offhandedly as she throws things haphazardly into a sack.

"Once a day or so," replies Kagome, although her thoughts are still on the conversation outside.

"Oh, that explains the smell now. And how often must you eat? I confess I have spent very little time with your kind and these sorts of details are lost on me."

"Three times a day is best," she plays with the ends of her hair absent-mindedly.

A warm claw on her wrist causes Kagome to start and she looks around to see the curious eyes of the Lady of the West fixed on hers.

"What troubles you?" the demoness asks lightly; as if it's not important.

"Oh, it's nothing," Kagome says, locking eyes with the demoness.

The Lady's eyes narrow slightly. "Tell me," she says with a tilt of her head, "What importance do your people set by eye contact?"

"What?" Kagome's surprised by the seemingly random question and blinks.

"Because my people see it as a challenge," continues the Lady lightly, still staring fixedly into Kagome's eyes. "Surely you do not mean to challenge me, do you, little Kagome?"

"Oh!" Kagome says and looks away at once, "No! I'm really sorry! I didn't mean to offend you!"

The Lady of the West lets out a little sigh that Kagome suspects might have been much bigger if the demoness was prone to large displays of emotion. "Good. That is good. This once, I will allow the transgression. Do not make the same mistake twice."

And then an overwhelming surge of demonic energy crashes down around them. It's so strong and so angry that she gasps and her own powers flare up to meet it, encasing her and the demoness in a shining pink bubble.

The Lady of the West yelps in surprise, which brings Kagome back to herself. "Sorry," she mumbles, and the bubble pops in a shower of pink and white sparks.

"Pay it no mind. They are merely establishing who is the alpha."

Instead of being reassured, which Kagome is sure was the Lady's intention, she only feels worried and she looks back toward the door and worries the end of her bow.

"Sesshoumaru will be fine," the demoness says lightly.

"Oh, I wasn't—" begins Kagome, feeling her cheeks heat up.

"There is no need to lie and no need to be ashamed. You are on friendly terms. It is strange, but I am pleased to see Sesshoumaru speaking so freely with another, even if you are human."

"Oh," and Kagome can feel her bottom lip begin to tremble as tears of something that might be relief fill her eyes.

"Perhaps Toga said something, then," observes the demoness with a little nod. "Yes, I should have known it would have been something like that."

"He's awful!" Kagome bursts out. "He says such horrible things! Like killing me or punishing Kurumi even though he knows what the jewel is like! Anyone who has seen what the jewel can do has to know that it's so, so hard to resist it!"

"Yes, he is horrible," agrees the demoness so flatly that Kagome pauses in the middle of what was shaping up to be a magnificent, passionate rant.

"W—I'm sure he has some redeeming features." Maybe it's because he looks so much like both Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru, but if the Lady of the West isn't going to defend him, she feels like she has to. Which isn't fair since she doesn't like him at all.

The demoness's head tilts to one side slightly. "Really? Like what?" She asks with genuine interest.

Kagome is stunned. Eventually, she says, "You do love him, don't you?"

"What gave you that impression?"

"Well," Kagome says, suddenly feeling awkward, "Sesshoumaru, for one thing. And you're a mated pair, right?" She doesn't mention the fact that she knows Izayoi will come later. For now, the Lord and Lady of the West seem to be very much together.

But the Lady's eyes shine brightly when she says, "Not all is as it seems." It's said like a statement, but it sounds like a riddle.

"I…what?" says the dumbstruck girl.

"We are wed, that much is true. Toga knew that it would only be a matter of time before I usurped him as ruler of the west. This kingdom was going to be mine but," she sighs lightly, "Toga saw a path that I did not foresee: He asked to be my mate. In public. Well, everyone knew I coveted the throne and since the avenue of peace was offered to me, I could not refuse and still maintain good standing with the people."

Kagome has absolutely no idea what to say to that. It's all said so plainly and so matter-of-factly that it almost seems preposterous. "Why are you telling me all this?" she asks eventually.

The demoness raises the sleeve of her kimono to her mouth to hide her small smile. "It is no secret, little Kagome. Do you not have partnerships of necessity where you come from?"

"Well sure, I guess," she mumbles, "But mostly people marry for love."

The demoness considers this for a moment. "How…romantic," she says eventually, but Kagome gets the impression that she's just saying it to be nice.

"Love is a wonderful thing!" Kagome says defensively, "Love brings people together and love makes everyone do incredible things!"

"Of course, of course," soothes the demoness with a placating gesture, "I am no stranger to love."

"But you just said—"

"Kagome," says the Lady of the West with a little sigh, "Perhaps you should pay more attention to things left _un_ said. I am beginning to suspect that your kind relied too much on words."

"So you _do_ love your mate!" Kagome says in triumph.

"Of course I do. I love my mate immensely. I am happiest when my mate is near and so I keep my mate close to me always."

Kagome's brows draw together. "No, I'm sorry. Do you love Inu no Taisho or don't you?"

"Him? Of course not."

"But he's your mate, isn't he?"

Kagome knows that she's finally asked the right question because the Lady's eyes sparkle and she smiles, truly smiles. Kagome realizes now that she has never seen the lady smile before this moment, not really. Although she is always beautiful, when her face splits with joy, the Lady of the West is nothing short of radiant. "That, little Kagome, is the secret none would believe even if tell the perfect truth."

"But Sesshoumaru—"

"Is the natural and believable result of our marriage and I adore my pup very, very much. I derive great joy from motherhood."

"So let me get this straight: You're married to Inu no Taisho, you're the Lady of the Western Lands, but he isn't your mate?"

"Indeed it was his intention to take me as his mate when he proposed. If he were to bind my lifespan to his, he need not worry about me as an enemy ever again. If he had become my mate and I was to kill him, perhaps I would have been the sole ruler of his land for half a day. I think that is still the record for one mate outliving the other. But marriage is done in public and mating is done in private. Although I agreed to become his wife and although I have given him an heir, to this day he does not have a mate."

Kagome nodded to herself and took a long minute to digest this information. At last, she asked, "One more thing: Does Sesshoumaru know all of this?"

"Sesshoumaru?" Again, she seems genuinely surprised. "Of course. Although there is no love between us, his father and I are allies and my mate is always near. There are no secrets within a pack."

So much information has been dumped on her in such a short amount of time that she really feels like she needs to have a nice long sit-down to digest it all. Or maybe a nap. Or a drink. Or…she doesn't even know what else.

"But enough of this talk of love," says the Lady of the West, back to business, "Your bag is packed. Mitsuki."

"Yesssss, my lady."

Kagome yelps as the snake demoness materializes out of the shadows.

"Take Kagome to where Sesshoumaru waits."

"Yesssss, my lady," hisses the demoness and bows low. When she rises again, she accepts the pack that the Lady of the West holds out to her and then turns her full attention to Kagome. "If you pleassssse, Misssssss," she susurrates and, with a final bow to her mistress, leads Kagome out.

* * *

When she gets out to the stone courtyard, Sesshoumaru is indeed already waiting for her. She is pleased to see that his wounds are healed. He is wearing his armor again, she notes, complete with the ruff of fur he travels with in the future and the familiarity of it is reassuring. At his hip is strapped a sword, and she doesn't know enough about weapons to know if it's the same sword as the one he had before they arrived.

"Hi," she says when she is standing in front of him. Her bow is in her hands and a quiver of arrows is slung over her shoulder.

He looks down at her and she carefully avoids his gaze, wondering if she's offended Dog-Demon etiquette in the past without realizing it.

Sesshoumaru, on the other hand, is so surprised by her sudden deference that he says, "Hello." And then, because she seems surprised that he said something at all, he adds, "You are prepared?"

"Yes," she says, turning her bow over and over in her hands.

"Very good." He holds a hand out to her. "Come."

Without another word, wrapped up in her own thoughts about the Lord and Lady of the West, she slides her hand into his.

"Go and come back ssssssafely," says Mitsuki from the shadows as the cloud forms beneath them and they float gently up.

* * *

"I thought we were going on foot," Kagome says when the castle is just a collection of flickering lights beneath them. "I thought that was how we were going to find her."

"Hnnn. But first, we are to ask advice from the Land God."

Kagome can hear the reticence in his voice and by the light of the full moon overhead, she can see the flicker of displeasure across his face. "Is that bad?" She asks hesitantly.

"Hnnn." He replies and then because he suspects that if he doesn't say more, she'll ask more questions, "I find him…trying."

"How so?" is the immediately-asked question.

"You will see."

* * *

When the cloud lands just outside the tori arch, the first thing Kagome notices is that it's white instead of the traditional red. It's colder up here than it was in the valley, and Kagome hugs her arms around herself to stay warm.

"Come," Sesshoumaru says and walks beneath the arch.

When they reach the temple, Kagome is surprised by how bare it looks. It's a small wooden structure with paper screens and a single light flickering behind it. She doesn't have time to ask any questions before the door is flung open and a red, white, and green streak collides with Sesshoumaru.

"Beautiful demoness," sings out as subtle as a baseball bat against a metal pole, and in the light that is spilling out into the night Kagome can see that it is a man—or demon, if the pointed ears are any indication—with very long green and red hair tied back in a low ponytail, dressed in a long white robe. "So kind of you to visit this evening. Pray, what can this lowly god do for such a beautiful female."

Kagome looks at Sesshoumaru's face. His eyes are glazed over. His mouth is set into a grim line. The muscle she's come to identify as the Unhappy Muscle jumps in his cheek. "Kiwani," he says flatly.

"Oh!" The Land God jumps back and looks Sesshoumaru up and down. "Oh," and his very hair seems to deflate. "It's just you, Sesshoumaru-sama," he says with unmistakable disappointment. "What do you want? It's late."

Kagome can't help it. She giggles.

The Land God's eyes travel to her and she can see his face light up and his hair lifts dramatically. "What a beautiful Miko you have brought to me! What lovely skin! What beautiful hair! Tell me, magnificent creature," he says, smiling suavely at her, "What is your name?" He takes a step closer than her. She has to look up to see him. He's taller than Inuyasha, but probably not quite as tall as Sesshoumaru. His eyes are bright black and she can't help but notice the elegant line of his nose. His twinkling eyes make her think that he smiles a lot.

"Oh, uhm, Kagome," she says, and she can feel her cheeks heating up. She giggles again nervously.

"Kiwani," says Sesshoumaru again. When Kagome glances his way, she can see his mouth is turned down in a small frown. The muscle in his cheek twitches furiously.

"Kagome!" sighs the god, "What a wonderful name for such a wonderful face!" He scoops her hand in both of his. "Have you come to tend my shrine?"

"Oh, uh, not really," she says, trying without success to pull back her hand. He's starting to remind her just a bit too much of Miroku. "We're actually only here for your advice."

Kiwani sighs dramatically, "Oh, magnificent Kagome! You wound me so! It has been so many years since a beautiful priestess has come to tend to my shrine!"

"Kiwani," says Sesshoumaru again, as flatly as ever, as he steps between Kagome and the god, physically prying their hands apart. "I have come for your advice. As a Land God."

"Advice," Kiwani snorts indelicately and waves a hand in dismissal. "You never come to visit. You never leave offerings, and now you want advice? I bet you brought the beautiful priestess here just to torment me, didn't you?"

"Kiwani," Sesshoumaru says with what Kagome thinks is remarkable patience, "Do your duty as the Land God."

"No," huffs the god. "I don't think I feel like being particularly godly tonight. In fact, I'm quite tired after a long day of not being visited, so I think I'll just go back to bed." He turns away from them.

"Please," says Kagome, who has learned how to deal with men like this over four years of dealing with Miroku and Kouga, "We would really appreciate your help," she says with her brightest smile.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, they are seated in the Land God's shrine and Kagome is admiring the fan on the raised platform at the back. "You live in this?" she asks with interest.

"Yes and no," Kiwani replies, taking the opportunity to edge nearer to her, one long arm draping across her shoulders. "This fan is where my godhood resides. Without it," he sighs dramatically, "I would be just another pheasant demon. But with it, I am so much more."

"Oh," she replies, sliding out from under his arm and putting some distance between them, "That's interesting. So how does a demon become a god?"

"Well," says the god, sliding over to Kagome again and putting his arm around her a second time, completely undaunted, "When a Land God decides that their time has come to its end, they name their successor. It takes a massive amount of power to pass the godhood on to another and is generally the last thing a god does. It is a job for the rest of one's life and it is a huge honor."

"Oh wow," says Kagome and scoots away again. "Sesshoumaru," she says, more to drag him into the conversation than out of any real interest, "Isn't it wonderful?"

"Hnnn," he replies noncommittally, staring flatly at the other demon.

"Well, of course, _that_ one doesn't think so," says Kiwani with a roll of his eyes, folding his arms across his chest. Kagome notices with some gratification that the distraction technique worked and Kiwani is looking sadly at Sesshoumaru.

"Really?" Kagome says with genuine interest, looking between them. "Why not?"

"This Sesshoumaru values his freedom. A cage is a cage."

This confuses her even more so Kiwani explains, "A Land God is tied to the land they protect. Alas, I cannot leave my temple grounds, although my power extends well beyond that."

"Hnnn." Says Sesshoumaru dismissively. "Although that is not Kiwani's biggest concern."

"What does he mean?" Kagome asks.

"Alas, my days are also very, very busy and I must have sparing communication with the humans and demons I protect."

"Oh, but you're talking to us now," she logically points out.

"So it is," says the demon-turned-god, "But that one is a lord and you, my beautiful Kagome, are a priestess. Ah," he adds with a dazzling smile, "But you are even more stunning for your power. It is just one more reason why you are so perfect."

"How nice," she replies with her best polite smile.

"But Godhood comes with so many wonderful advantages! I can see the future for one thing. Oh, and I can grant wishes, too!"

"If they are small enough and asked consistently by a worshipper who happens to be a female for a long enough time. And he feels like it." Interjects Sesshoumaru.

"A pretty female," corrects Kiwani. "So what do you say? Won't you stay with me, Kagome? I am a very good god."

"No thank you. But if you could tell us—"

"In the morning," he says quickly, "Humans need their rest and I am ever so lonely up here in these mountains by myself. If you stay the night, I will tell you which way Kurumi has gone."

* * *

Half an hour later and despite her protestations, Kagome is fast asleep, covered in a kimono and using her pack as a pillow. Sesshoumaru kneels beside her, watching the even rise and fall of her chest, marveling at how something that is so loud during the day can be so peaceful at night.

"She really is powerful, you know," Kiwani says seriously. "I'm sure you can feel it too."

"Hnnn." He replies and then, after some thought, he adds, "She claimed it was the jewel that made her powerful, but she remains strong even now."

"Indeed she does," agrees Kiwani, "In all seriousness, I would not try to stand between that one and what she seeks. But such is the way with humans," he says with a wave of his hand, "You find strength in the strangest places."

"You have always loved humans," says Sesshoumaru, raising one eyebrow.

"I have always loved females," corrects the god. "Species matters not." And then, "Enough with your judgmental silences, Sesshoumaru! It's in my nature. Not all of us mate for life!"

"Or at least not only once."

"You say that like it's a bad thing! I would be hurt if I did not know precisely where that elitist attitude came from," he clicks his tongue and shakes his head sadly. "Such a tragedy. What does Kagome think of that horrible personality of yours?"

"Hnnn," says Sesshoumaru and goes back to watching Kagome sleep.

"You regret bringing her." And when Sesshoumaru does nothing to refute the claim, Kiwani chuckles. "Don't. She is stronger than even you realize."

"But is she strong enough?" he asks eventually.

Kiwani's black eyes widen. "You fear for her safety?" he asks, astonishment written on his expressive features. "I am surprised at you, Sesshoumaru! It is not like you to worry about anyone! What is it you told me when we were young—If you cannot keep up, then you will fall behind?" He says in a fairly decent impression of his friend.

"You were insufferable when we were younger," Sesshoumaru says dismissively. And then, with even greater gravity than normal, he adds, "And she is human. You were not."

Kiwani watches him watch Kagome for a long time and then says, "Tell me, Sesshoumaru, how do you feel about riddles these days?"

 _Who carries a bow but no arrows?_ "They remain distasteful."

Kiwani's face splits into a wicked grin. "Good. Then this will give you something to chew on for a while: The next time Kagome comes to see me she will be happy, but she will not enter your father's lands a second time."

Sesshoumaru considers this for a while and then says, "That doesn't make any sense. Explain yourself."

"Ah me!" Sighs Kiwani, edging toward his fan. He yawns widely. "I think I'm getting tired!"

"No. Explain yourself."

"Mmmmno, I think I'd rather go to sleep. Being a god is so exhausting." He begins to fade around the edges.

"Kiwani you will explain yourself."

"Think of this as my revenge," is the sing song reply as Kiwani continues to fade.

"Revenge for what, exactly?"

But Kiwani is completely gone now and his voice, when it answers, seems to come from everywhere at once. "You'll see."

* * *

Kagome awakens feeling more refreshed and alive than she's felt in ages, but she still lingers on the edge of sleep, savoring how warm and peaceful she feels before she opens her eyes.

"Good morning, my magnificent Miko," trills Kiwani's loud voice, "I have prepared your breakfast!"

She sits up and rubs her face, giving Kiwani a bleary-eyed smile. "Good morning, Kiwani." She looks around and catches sight of Sesshoumaru standing beside her bow and quiver near the door. He stares at her and, remembering her good manners, she focuses her gaze slightly to his left and says brightly, "Good morning, Sesshoumaru."

He inclines his head to her but is internally unsure why she will not look at him. He has been under the impression for several days that eye contact is a human behavior pattern and is not sure how to interpret the new lack of it.

Unaware of his internal struggle, Kagome stretches her arms over her head, stops, and her eyes grow wide. In disbelief, her right hand feels her left shoulder. "My wound!" she shouts, "It's gone!"

Kiwani grins and her and winks. "Miraculous!"

"You did this?" Kagome beams at him, "Thank you so much!"

"Just one of the many wonderful advantages of spending the night with a god." The grin becomes roguish.

"Kiwani," Sesshoumaru's voice is flat, but Kagome thinks it's the sort of flat a sword is when it's not pointed directly at you.

And then a heavily laden tray is thrust onto her lap.

"Oh my," she says, looking at the many, many dishes. "I hope you don't expect me to eat all of this."

"In fact I do," replies the god, grinning roguishly. "You will miss lunch today and dinner will be mildly unappetizing for you." He winks. "Trust me. I'm a god."

Her eyes drift toward Sesshoumaru. Behind Kiwani's back, he nods slightly.

She smiles and says, "Well, in that case, I'll dig right in!"

* * *

Once she has finished eating (and she does eat everything), Kiwani rubs his hands together and says, "Now then! The information you need!"

"The information we're looking for," rumbles Sesshoumaru.

"Yes, yes," Kiwani waves his hands. His eyes slide shut. "Listen well, oh lovely one," he says seriously and then, opening one eye and glancing for the briefest moment at Sesshoumaru, "and you too, I suppose, for I shall only say this once: You will find what you need in the forests of Abe. Look between the trees at sunset and all will be made clear."

And then his eyes snap open again and he looks at them expectantly.

"Thank you so much," Kagome says without any real conviction.

"No. Explain," demands Sesshoumaru.

Kiwani swoons dramatically, a hand to his forehead. "Alas! My godly powers are waning! If only a beautiful woman would bestow upon me a kiss! Then I might have the strength to—"

Sesshoumaru's growl is loud enough that even Kiwani sits up. "It was only a joke."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Sesshoumaru has Kagome's pack slung across his shoulder and is herding her toward the door while Kiwani continues to try to waylay them. "Are you sure you won't stay with me, Kagome?" He sighs and gives her a roguish smile, clasping her hands in his.

She smiles brightly and yanks her hands free of his. "Absolutely positive."

He sighs dramatically. "Oh, my poor breaking heart! But fine. So you'll always have something to remember me by, I'll give you this." and he reaches up into his hair and pulls a feather free. He presents it to her with a flourish.

"Wow," she says with a wide, fake smile, "A feather! How nice." She has no idea what she'll do with it.

"Not just any feather," says Kiwani, giving her another wink, "That is a god-feather and you are an archer. Fletch an arrow with that and your arrow will fly true, no matter what you aim for or how far the distance."

"Miko," says Sesshoumaru from a few feet away. He is holding out his hand. "Come."

Kagome looks back as the cloud begins to float away. The last thing she sees is Kiwani waving enthusiastically up at them. "Good bye, Kagome! I look forward to your next visit."

"Do you know where the forests of Abe are?" she asks, looking up at her traveling companion.

"Hnn."

And then they are speeding away.

* * *

Sesshoumaru is, if anything, even less talkative than normal.

They continue to fly south all through lunch and it is only when Kagome's stomach begins to rumble that Sesshoumaru's eyes slant toward her.

"We will set down here," he says and then, once they have landed in a clearing and he has deposited her pack beside a fallen log, "Wait here. I will collect food."

"Well that's—" she begins, but he has already disappeared between the trees. "Great," she finishes and is not surprised when the only answer is distant birdsong. She sighs and looks at the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the tall trees. In the distance, she can hear the burbling of running water.

The days have been hot and humid and, unless you count her dip in the well and all the times she's gotten stuck in the rain (which she doesn't), she hasn't had a bath since she left the feudal era. "Well if he thinks I'm just going to sit here and wait, he's got another thing coming," she says out loud and, grinning excitedly over the prospect of a bath, rummages through her back until she finds a comb, a bar of soap, a towel, and fresh undergarments.

* * *

She feels like she's been following the sound of water for an hour, maybe more, and although she doesn't want to admit it even to herself, she's starting to think that she's lost.

"It's got to be here somewhere," she murmurs to herself. The forest around her is getting even thicker and the little bit of sky she can see through the knotted branches is tinted orange in the setting sun. She regrets leaving her bow and arrows in the clearing.

Just when she's just about to give up hope, though, she breaks through a particularly thick patch of brambles and comes upon a happily burbling stream. Sunlight cuts like a blade through the trees here and glitters on the surface of the water. It is here, caught in a beam of dying light, that she sees the boy. Judging by size alone, she would guess him to be about twelve or thirteen; not much older than that. He is on the shore opposite hers, on his hands and knees, his face in the water.

She lets out a surprised little gasp and he looks up.

Water still dripping from his chin, he is on his feet in an instant and scurrying up the opposite embankment like a startled animal.

Perhaps it is the animal fear she sees on his face or perhaps it is just the shock of coming upon another human being in woods as dense as these that tears the words from her throat. "Wait!" she calls, "Please! I'm not going to hurt you!"

He stills at the top of the embankment, almost as if her words have frozen him in place.

He does not turn to face her right away, affording Kagome instead a view of an impossibly long mass of thick black hair, piled high in a ponytail. Demon, then, she corrects with a slight pang of disappointment, Humans don't have hair like that.

"I'm lost," she says eventually because she's never been good at silences.

He turns slowly and fixes her with a bright, intelligent gaze.

And she's surprised to see that his eyes, when they are fixed on her, are purely human and his ears are as rounded as hers are.

He takes a step nearer to her, back into the light, and Kagome notices the intricate designs sprawling across his haori and the meticulous pleats of his brown hakama.

 _A lord?_ Kagome wonders to herself. _A warlord's son, maybe?_ because surely a boy of thirteen or so could have no other reason to look as strange as this.

"Are you a human?" the boy asks in a clear, high voice. He cants his head to one side like a curious puppy. "Only you crash around like a human and you sound like a human, but I've never seen a human in these woods before and you are much stronger than any human I've ever seen before. What are you, truly?"

She doesn't dare get any closer for fear of scaring him off, but she shuffles her belongings in her arms to free a hand. She waves her fingers at him. "I'm human. See? No claws." And then, "I promise you don't have to be scared," because he looks like he might run away again.

Instead, he says, "Don't move," and begins to pick his way down the embankment until he is standing directly across the water from her. She can see now the dirt streaking his face and the little tears that dot his regal garb. His feet are bare and as brown as dirt. He is also sniffing delicately at her.

Second-guessing her assessment of his species again, she summons up what little spiritual power she has at her conscious beck and call and reaches out, looking for any traces of youki. No, he's definitely human, she decides when she can find nothing to indicate a demonic aura.

"How do you do that?" he demands. His large, expressive eyes narrow as he takes another step closer to her.

"Do what?" she asks, thrown.

"I could feel you…" he grimaces, clearly grasping for words he doesn't have. "You were reaching out for me. How did you do it? Are you human? Can you teach me to do it too?"

Kagome chuckles at the string of eager questions. He reminds her of Souta, but the memory of her brother, so far away in a future she cannot touch, brings a pang of sadness to her heart. "I was looking for youki—that's demonic energy—my friend who's a monk taught me how to do it." And she misses Miroku fiercely, too. "How could you tell I was doing it? Are you human?"

The boy looks downcast for a moment but then with determined cheerfulness, puffs out his chest and says, "I am, but mother says it hardly matters and that I'm cleverer than most of the real foxes anyway."

Something about that sentence strikes her as funny, but she isn't entirely sure yet why. "Mother?" she echoes.

The boy's entire face lights up. "Oh, mother's the greatest. She's stronger and cleverer than anyone else in the whole forest!"

Kagome recognizes the heart-achingly tender pride on his face. Her own mother is a thousand years away and completely unreachable. She wants to go home–either time she claims as home–so badly it hurts.

"No—the cleverest in the _world_!" The boy is saying, completely unaware of Kagome's internal strife. Then, suddenly, he stills and turns his grin to the dark of the wood behind him. "Oh—she's coming now!"

Kagome barely has time to gasp before an overwhelming youki pushes against her back, getting larger as whoever it belongs to approaches at speed.

And her feet are acting independently of her brain, obeying some biological or learned directive that she is only vaguely aware of. She crashes through the water, tackles the boy to the ground, throws up a protective barrier, and shields the boy with her body as the very powerful demon descends on the clearing.

It is a fox, Kagome realizes through her haze of fear, and it is huge. Larger, probably, than her family's entire house. It is pure-white and behind it eight bushy tails sweep back and forth, keeping perfect time with the oppressive waves of youki that roll off of it. But Kagome's focus is on its face. It's milky white eyes are narrowed and its pointed muzzle is pulled back in a snarl to reveal gleaming teeth, each as long as her forearm.

Kagome doesn't know if she should scream and hope Sesshoumaru is close enough to hear her or try to purify it before she and the boy are both turned into a light evening snack. Again she wishes desperately that she'd brought her bow and arrows. Maybe she could distract it while the boy—

"Mother!" he chirps, poking his head around Kagome's protectively-placed arm. A hand pops out next and waves at the enormous, angry fox. "Don't worry! She's my friend! I think this is how humans play!"

Kagome's mind grinds to a screeching halt.

The fox does not stop growling, but it doesn't attack, either.

"Mother?" Kagome echoes for the second time in as many minutes.

The boy wriggles out of her grasp and passes through her barrier. It shatters. He scampers over to stand between the massive fox's enormous front paws.

Kagome stares, mouth agape, as the human boy nuzzles against the kitsune's chest and as the kitsune's nose drops to snuffle against the neck and face, fluttering his long hair.

There is a flash of light so bright and a burst of youki so strong that Kagome closes her eyes and her powers rebel, prickling defensively against her skin as they make contact with the demonic energy. When she has recovered, a woman stands where the fox had been, her arms wrapped protectively around the boy. The overwhelming youki relents, coiling tight about its mistress. Her long white hair frames a pale, perfect face as she regards Kagome seriously. Her eyes, Kagome can see now, are unfocused. She is blind.

All is peaceful for a moment and then the demoness tenses.

Sesshoumaru's furious youki pummels against Kagome's already frazzled senses as he roars into the clearing, sword drawn and a snarl on his lips. He skids to a halt between where Kagome is still laying in the mud and where the fox and her boy are standing.

His low snarl reverberates around them all and vibrates in Kagome's chest.

"Prince of the West," she hears the demoness purr as she scrambles to her feet. "You have traveled far from your father's lands."

"My father's lands extend wherever my claws touch, Kuzunoha, Lady of the Wood." As if to illustrate this point, he cracks his knuckles.

Kagome pokes her head around his shoulder and sees that the fox demoness has already pushed the human child behind her. Unseeing eyes flicker to Kagome as a delicate eyebrow raises on the kitsune's beautiful face. "And does your father know how close you keep your Miko? How eager you are to prove your strength before her?"

It is asked lightly, casually, but Kagome can feel Sesshoumaru tense as if preparing to attack.

Kagome steps to his side and rests both of her hands over his right wrist just as the boy looks out from between eight puffy tails and says, "Mother, what is a Miko? Is that what his human is? Is he her father? Is that why he keeps her so close?"

The only answer is in the babble of the stream.


	6. Fireflies - The Road to Kyoto

Chapter 6: Fireflies - The Road to Kyoto

A/N: I know Abeyama is really only like a two-day trek from Kyoto, but I'm using magical author powers to make it longer. This is for the purposes of character development.

* * *

Kagome picks up her now-muddy bathing supplies. She invites the kitsune, Kuzunoha, and the boy—whose name he quickly informs them is Seimei—back to what she insists on calling their "campsite," despite the fact that, as Sesshoumaru very helpfully points out, it is simply the clearing where she abandoned her belongings and no camping has been done there at all. But she just ignores him and so he finds himself leading the way (Kagome apparently has no internal sense of direction or sense of smell to speak of) back to the clearing.

He is displeased.

Niceties like sharing a meal are unnecessary and he is loath to share his kill with those he does not consider useful or otherwise worthwhile. The boy asks too many questions. Sesshoumaru doesn't like the way Kuzunoha's unseeing eyes fix on him every time he speaks with the Miko or the way her mouth quirks up in a smile whenever he shows any deferential treatment to his travelling companion. It isn't _his_ fault that human eyes are unable to see in the half-dark of twilight or that this human in particular seems to trip over every fallen branch and outcropping stone. He doesn't see how it's funny. She means to be his ally. She carries a bow with no arrows. But she also means to befriend everyone she meets, so he leads them back to the clearing where he's left the deer he's killed.

"Wow! It's huge!" says Seimei, who doesn't seem to be bothered by the darkness or the debris that litters the forest floor. Sesshoumaru begins to suspect that the Miko is unusual in her clumsiness as Seimei runs up to the carcass, as graceful as a fox. "How many points was it? Is this all for us? How did you kill it? What did you do with the antlers? Can I keep them?"

"I'll build a fire!" volunteers the Miko and then squelches (she is still damp from the river) off in search of wood. She clatters across stones and snaps twigs under her sandals and Sesshoumaru doesn't know if she's making so much noise on purpose.

"It is a very impressive kill," says Kuzunoha so quietly that only Sesshoumaru can hear her over Kagome's bustling and crashing through the trees. "Sure to please any female."

His lip curls back in displeasure, but the gesture is wasted on the blind kitsune so he says, "I aim to please none but myself."

Kuzunoha smiles her secretive smile, hums noncommittally, and walks toward the human child. "Seimei," she says, "Let us clean the kill."

* * *

"Are you _sure_ you don't want any?" Seimei says, holding a chunk of meat out to her.

The raw meat and blood smeared around his mouth glint black in the glow of the firelight. Her stomach turns over on itself. It's one thing to watch Shippo or Kirara eat raw meat; it's a completely different thing to watch a human boy eat like a beast. "Quite sure," she says and pokes the fire with one of the unused skewering sticks she collected. Across the way, Kuzunoha bites through a long bone as if it's a potato chip and sucks the marrow into her mouth. It's strange to see someone who looks so human with jaws that strong. Kagome drags her gaze back to the fire.

 _What I wouldn't do for some ramen_ , she thinks as she stares into the crackling fire, and she aches for Inuyasha like she's missing a limb. How long has it been since she last saw him? A week? Six days? It feels so much longer and, taken chronologically, it is. She rests her chin in her hand and sighs.

"What brings the Young Lord of the West and a human Miko to my lands?" asks Kuzunoha.

"Oh," Kagome says, glad for the distraction, "We're looking for our friend."

"Who has stolen something that belongs to my pack."

Kagome shoots him a look. "It doesn't belong to anyone, that's the whole point. That's how this whole mess started in the first place."

"Hnnn."

"No, it doesn't," she insists. "And what would you guys do with it anyway? It's not like any of you can use it either. I told you—it makes people crazy."

"What is this object?" Asks Kuzunoha, her face swinging between them, her nostrils twitching delicately.

"The Shikon no Tama," says Kagome at exactly the same moment Sesshoumaru says, "It is not your concern."

"If you suspect this object and thief are on my lands, then it is my concern, Son of the West." responds the kitsune evenly. "You have fed my kit. You show us kindness. Your father is an ally. For these reasons, I will aid your quest."

Kagome claps her hands and smiles at her, "Thank you so much! That would be really helpful. Actually," her eyes light up and she turns her bright grin to Sesshoumaru in triumph, "I think you really will be able to help us! You know Kurumi, don't you?"

Kuzunoha's eyebrows rise and her mouth opens in surprise. "Kurumi? A quiet little thing, if I recall. She left my lands to serve in the Western Palace several decades ago, I believe."

"Yeah!" Kagome says excitedly, "That's her! Do you know where she might go, if she's hurt or scared?"

Kuzunoha's expression grows guarded. "Why are you looking for Kurumi? The vixen is a hard worker and very honest. She cannot be the thief you seek?"

"Yes," says Sesshoumaru at the same time Kagome says, "She's not a thief."

He stares at her and she meets his stony golden gaze. If it's a battle of wills, she'll fight and win to defend someone else. "She has taken an object that was not hers to take. She fled a coward."

"But it wasn't her fault," Kagome responds. "It's the jewel. It does something. You _know_ that. Even you wanted it when you first found me."

"You come to my lands and accuse one of my vixens of stealing something of great value from a political ally," says Kuzunoha slowly. "Please tell me your story."

So, Kagome tells them the story of her arrival in the distant past, beginning with the centipede demon's appearance and ending with their landing in the woods just before she found Seimei. She keeps the details of her life before that vague; close enough to the truth that they can't smell her deception but far enough from fact that they can't see the future in her words.

"This jewel sounds very powerful," Kuzunoha says at last, once Kagome has finished relating the story, "What will you do with it when you find it? Return to your land?"

Kagome and Sesshoumaru both say "Yes" at exactly the same time.

She smiles at him and then says to Kuzunoha, "Or try to, anyway."

This confuses him. "Why will we need to 'try?' It is a simple matter of flying. We will be returned in less than a day."

There is a sinking feeling in her stomach as Kagome starts to suspect that they aren't actually talking about the same thing. "No," she says slowly, "The only way back to my…land…is through the well."

"The jewel will be returned to my father," says Sesshoumaru in a tone that says quite plainly that it is not an issue up for discussion.

"No," snaps Kagome, who can feel her temper rising, "That's ridiculous! After you've seen what the jewel can do, you still think we should bring it back to your father? It turns people into _monsters_ , Sesshoumaru—thoughtless, brainless monsters."

"Hnnn." He doesn't look away, but he won't agree to her plan. Even if it would avoid an argument, he is above lies.

"And what is _that_ supposed to mean?" She is on her feet now; her hands are on her hips. She glares at him.

He matches her eye contact with a stony glare of his own. The muscle is twitching in his jaw but she pays it no attention. "First, we must recover the jewel," he says. "We will discuss the future when it is in our possession again."

She wants to argue, she really does, but just then she catches Seimei watching her. His gaze is serious and his head is cocked to one side. The glint of the fire catches all the rises and falls of his small face, making him look older and stranger than she would have thought possible, but the large, dark eyes that regard her seriously are a child's eyes and she won't have an argument like this in front of a kid. She sighs and counts backwards from ten before she turns her brightest smile to Sesshoumaru, in her cheeriest voice she says, "I trust you'll make the right decision when the time comes!"

It isn't a comment that resolves anything, but it seems to shock him into silence.

After a long beat in which the only sound is the crackling of the fire, "What will you do with Kurumi once you find her?" says Kuzunoha. It's a delicately asked question, but even Kagome can hear the weight behind it. Kuzunoha is a protective mother, even of children who aren't hers and aren't children anymore.

It is Kagome who answers, wringing her hands together and staring into the fire. "She isn't herself right now. The jewel does something. If we can get the jewel out, then I think I can save her, but there's a chance that she won't let us get close enough to do even that." In the orange glow of the fire, she can almost see Kurumi's wide, orange eyes. Kagome straightens up, determination hardening her features. "But I'm definitely not going to give up without a fight. She's still in there somewhere, I just know it."

"It seems to me that danger follows this jewel wherever it might go. Is there no way to rid the world of it?" Kuzunoha asks.

Kagome coughs delicately. "Well, if someone makes a pure, unselfish wish on it, it'll disappear forever."

Everyone looks at her.

Seimei, who has been silent until now, says, "Who will make the wish?"

Kagome sighs and stares into the fire. "Who knows? I've never been able to think of a wish that wasn't selfish in some way. Even if I wish for something nice for someone else, I'm still doing it because I want to get rid of the jewel, which makes it selfish, so it still wouldn't count." She laughs self-consciously, "I guess I'll just take care of it until someone thinks of something really good to wish for, you know?"

* * *

After the meal, Kuzunoha transforms again. She's so large that she flattens a semicircle of trees in the process, startling a small flock of birds and disturbing the otherwise peaceful night air. As she noses the downed timber out of the clearing, Seimei leaps to his feet, springs like a hare over the fire, and makes it a dozen feet before Kuzunoha's mouth snaps down on the collar of his haori.

"Aw, mother, _please_?" he whines even as he goes limp and she carries him back across the fire and into her expanded section of the clearing, "I'm not even that dirty!"

Kuzunoha wuffles (and Kagome is surprised by just how maternal of a sound it is from such a large mouth) and lays down, depositing her human kit between her front paws. Seimei makes an attempt to crawl over her paw, but before he can, the kitsune's giant tongue drags up the side of his face.

Despite his earlier protestations and attempted escape, Seimei relaxes.

Kagome watches the kitsune bathe the human with rapt attention. By the time Kuzunoha has finished, Seimei is sleeping peacefully, curled between his mother's paws, and the fire, untended while Kagome was preoccupied, has died down.

Kuzunoha turns her enormous head toward Sesshoumaru, who is reclining against a tree at the very edge of the firelight. She lets out a quiet yip, clearly trying not to disturb the sleeping child.

Sesshoumaru inclines his head slowly.

And with that, Kuzunoha puts her giant head down and closes her sightless eyes. A low rumble like a giant purr fills the clearing. It is an old sound and even Kagome feels peace and sleep tug invitingly at the hem of her consciousness.

"What did she say?" asks Kagome quietly, looking at Sesshoumaru.

He regards her seriously. How could he bare the belly of a sound like that in a way she would understand? What is he supposed to say it in words a human would understand? He wonders for the first time if she can ever truly hear the secrets kept between the skin and muscle; between beating hearts and bone? But she is watching him with her large, trusting eyes, so he has to answer somehow. "She wanted to know if I would keep watch," he says at last, "She wishes to sleep with her kit. Now she is singing him to sleep."

"Oh," says Kagome, blinking sleepily. "That was really nice of you. I can take first watch if you'd like. Or second watch. It's up to you." She stifles a yawn.

"I do not need to sleep," he says.

"Oh," she blinks slowly, "But Kuzunoha looks like she's going to bed. And Shippo sleeps with me every night."

"He is your one-tail kit?"

She nods.

"All young need to rest. It is common for mothers to rest with their young."

"Oh." Her mind is working slowly. The purr seems to have wrapped her mind in cotton. She wonders whether she should put another log on the fire before she goes to sleep or if she should just let it die out on its own. The night is warm. She's glad it's not raining.

Kuzunoha opens one eye, turns her muzzle slightly toward Kagome and woofs softly. Between her paws, Seimei let out a little whine that sounds so much like the noise Shippo makes in his sleep that it tugs at Kagome's heart.

"She has invited you to join them," says Sesshoumaru.

"Why do you sound so surprised?" she asks.

His eyes widen as he meets her bleary-eyed stare. He wonders what in his even voice betrayed any emotion. He wonders when she found the seam line in his mask. "It is unusual for a mother to extend an offer like this to a stranger. It is an honor afforded to few."

Kagome yawns and says, "So it would be fine if I accepted, right?"

"Hnnn."

She smiles at him and rises. She makes her way around the fire and lays down on the side of Kuzunoha's massive front paw, curled up so her head rests at the junction of the kitsune's wrist. Her black hair is barely visible around white fur. Kuzunoha's head swings around and, very gently, the tip of her black nose touches Kagome's.

Half-asleep already, the human girl giggles softly. "Good night, Sesshoumaru," she murmurs and then he listens as her breathing slows to a steady rhythm and sleep gathers her into an easy rest

* * *

"Miko." Something prods her in the side.

"Mrph," she replies and rolls over, swatting at the prodding hand.

"Miko. Awaken."

"Mmmmno." She buries her face in soft, warm fur and sighs in contentment.

"Miko."

She mumbles, "'S not morning yet," and tries to go back asleep.

"Miko it is past dawn."

She doesn't answer.

There is a short sigh. "Miko, tell me what you want for breakfast and I will allow you to return to sleep."

"Leftovers sound great," she sighs. "I'll eat whatever."

"Falsehood. You did not partake of the deer last night at all. You will tell this Sesshoumaru what you will eat for breakfast."

She opens one bleary eye and glares with as much hatred as she can at the demon who has disturbed her slumber. Deciding that he won't go away unless she gives him what he's after, "Fish," she murmurs and then, testily adds, "Can I go back to sleep now?"

"Hnnn."

Above them, Kuzunoha listens.

* * *

When she next wakes up, it's to the crackle of the fire and Seimei's enthusiastic, "Whoa!"

A cold wet nose prods the side of her face as she sits up. "Morning, Kuzunoha," she says, sleep graveling her voice. Once she has rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she looks over toward the fire where Sesshoumaru and Seimei stand.

At Sesshoumaru's feet is a pile of dead fish, gleaming bright colors and still wet. There must be a dozen fish of different shapes and sizes. Sesshoumaru is watching her face, his hands tucked in the sleeves of his kimono.

"Wow," she says, because she feels like she's supposed to say something in this situation. "That's a lot of fish." She gives him a sleepy smile.

Maybe she's just imagining it, but the tension seems to leave him and he stands just a little bit taller. He nods his head once in her direction and then turns his face back to the human boy.

"What's this one called?" Seimei holds up a long fish that glints silver and gold.

And Kagome is surprised when Sesshoumaru regards the youth seriously and responds, "Hnnn. Shiro-gisu. Come. We will gut them."

"Cool!"

As soon as Kagome is standing, there is a flash of bright light and then Kuzunoha is standing beside her, as perfect as porcelain. "How lucky we are to have a feast for the second day in a row," exclaims the demoness, a perfect smile on her face.

"Thank you for letting me sleep on you," Kagome says. She feels young and shabby standing beside Kuzunoha.

"It is nothing, little one," she says kindly, "You are a guest in my lands. It is the least I can do for the pleasure of your company. It is not every day that a human comes to my woods and is unafraid. From what you have said, you also travel a fox kit. For the sake of all fox mothers, I will repay your kindness."

Kagome wants to ask more, to learn what Kuzunoha might mean, but it is at that moment that Sesshoumaru says, "Miko. Come and eat."

"Yeah, Kagome! Mother! Let's eat!"

* * *

"Do you have any idea where Kurumi might have gone?" Kagome asks Kuzunoha once breakfast is finished.

Kuzunoha considers this before answering. "From what you have told me, it is clear that your land god's words led you to my woods on purpose. If your land god sent you to me, then it is because he thought that I could help you. Unfortunately, I have not seen Kurumi in many years. It is said that an injured fox will always return home, but I do not know where that might be for Kurumi."

Kagome taps her chin thoughtfully. "What about Heian-kyo?" she asks. "She once told me that's where she's from."

Kuzunoha looks surprised. "The city? It is true that this is where she hails originally, but in the last century it has become overrun with humans. The den of her mother no longer stands and her parents are no longer in the land of the living."

"Oh," says Kagome. "I didn't know she was an orphan."

"Indeed," Kuzunoha sighs, her expression growing wistful, "That is how she came to work for me. I do not normally keep a handmaiden, but for many years I have trained up the orphaned kits of my lands and given them skills to earn their living in the world."

Kagome glances at Seimei, who is still eating fish with gusto and hardly seems to be paying attention to the conversation going on around them. She wonders if he is one of her orphans, but doesn't know how to ask. So instead, "Do you have any idea where she might have gone, then?"

Kuzunoha ponders this for a long time before saying, "I do not, but perhaps Heian-kyo might not be a bad place to start looking."

"Then we will begin our search there," says Sesshoumaru.

"How far is Heian-kyo from here?" Kagome asks.

"A three-day journey on foot," says Kuzunoha, "If we travel quickly."

"Could we fly?" Suggests Kagome, looking between the demons.

Sesshoumaru says, "Should Kurumi see us from a distance, she will have ample time to escape before we are close enough to apprehend her."

"It's also too dangerous to fly with you and Seimei. If she were to attack us while we're in the air, Sesshoumaru and I would be fine, but it would not be much for her to knock you or Seimei to your deaths."

"Ah," says Kagome and looks over at the human boy, who is still eating fish. The longer she looks at him, though, the stranger he looks. He keeps eating, but it's almost like she's watching a looped video recording of a human boy eating the same bit of fish over and over again. Her eyes narrow, her brow furrows. "Seimei? Are you ok?"

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Seimei looks up from the fish and starts expanding like a balloon, getting larger and larger until he starts floating.

Sesshoumaru is on his feet, sword drawn, snarl on his lips, crossing toward where Seimei sits, eating the same bit of fish over and over. Sesshoumaru raises his sword and, unheeding of Kagome's shout of surprise, slices Seimei cleanly in two. Kagome screams, but there's a puff of smoke and then a bisected leaf, not a child, floats to the ground.

Kagome jumps and Sesshoumaru turns as Kuzunoha lets out a high, sharp, cackling laugh and Seimei steps out from around her, looking very pleased with himself.

"Took you two long enough to notice!" he says cheekily.

"My boy is the cleverest kit!" Sings out Kuzunoha, her eyes crinkling with joy and her face shining with pride.

Seimei giggles and grins. He twirls another leaf between his fingers.

Kagome's got her hand over her thudding heart, but she's laughing. She looks over at Sesshoumaru, whose eyes are widened with surprise. This just makes Kagome laugh even harder. She's never seen anything that has managed to break his icy façade so quickly. Tears leak out of the corners of her eyes and she's doubled over, clutching at her stomach.

"Your human kit knows fox magic?" Asks Sesshoumaru once they have all taken their seats again and Kagome has gotten her giggles under control.

The look of pride hasn't dulled on Kuzunoha's face. "No, Son of the West. My _fox_ kit knows fox magic. The shape he takes matters not."

Sesshoumaru raises one eyebrow but says nothing.

* * *

Once they've cleaned up their campsite and doused their fire, they set off. Kuzunoha leads the way with Kagome walking beside her. Sesshoumaru lags a few paces behind them and Seimei wanders in a wide circle around them, exploring hollow logs and climbing trees seemingly at random.

After he brings his mother a toad to see and she _ooh_ s and _aah_ s before telling him to let it go again, "Can you see anything?" asks Kagome even though she's afraid of sounding rude.

"Not a thing," replies the kitsune lightly. Her eight tails are spread like a fan. Her hands are tucked into the sleeves of her kimono and her blue-white hair is spread over her shoulders.

"But you knew that toad was yellow before anyone said what color it was," replies Kagome.

Kuzunoha nods and says, "When the wind blows, you know which direction it blows from, do you not?"

Kagome thinks about this for a moment. "Well yeah," she says with a shrug. "I can feel it."

"And when meat cooks over the fire, you know what animal it is, do you not?"

"Of course. Rabbit smells different from fish."

"So too can I tell the shape and color of a toad. It isn't so hard, with a nose and ears like mine."

"Oh," says Kagome. "Sorry if that was rude," she says.

"Oh, I don't mind at all. I have been blind all my life," Kuzunoha explains, "and personally I don't think I'm missing much. I have never wanted for knowledge about my surroundings. What I cannot hear, I can smell. What I cannot smell, I can feel. And what I cannot feel, I know in other ways. Like how I know Seimei is planning on jumping out of that tree to startle you."

"Aw, mother!" There's a strange ripple across a tree a dozen yards ahead of them and suddenly Kagome can see Seimei, a leaf on top of his head, crouching between the branches. "Why'd you spoil it?"

Kuzunoha lets out another yipping laugh. "I just saved you from a world of hurt, Seimei. Lord Sesshoumaru would not have taken kindly to you startling his Miko."

Kagome looks back at the demon and smiles. When she catches his eye, she looks away, again secretly glad that the Lady of the West told her about that particular dog demon custom. Behind her back, Sesshoumaru's eyes narrow. He does not understand her changed behavior and what he doesn't understand, he doesn't trust.

* * *

The next morning Kagome wakes up warm and at peace. She spends the first few moments that she's awake just enjoying the softness of her pillow and chasing the tail end of her strange dream around her mind.

"But the sun's been up for _ages_ ," comes Seimei's voice in something that might have been meant as a whisper but really sounded more like a shout than anything else.

Kuzunoha let out a sharp exhale and warm air hits Kagome full in the face, blowing her hair around.

"But Sesshoumaru says—"

Above and around her, Kuzunoha shifts and then there's a soft yip from the boy. A soft, rumbling chuckle shakes her pillow.

Kagome opens her eyes to see Seimei looking very sour as he rubs one ear. She follows Seimei's glare to Sesshoumaru, who is across the remnants of the fire, looking bored.

"Good morning," Kagome says.

"Kagome!" Seimei is beside her at once, practically vibrating with excitement. "You're up! You want fish again this morning, right? Sesshoumaru says that if you want more fish, he'll let me go catch it with him!"

"Sure," Kagome rubs her eyes, not really thinking about what she's saying, "Sounds great."

* * *

And as soon as they are out of earshot—boy and demon walking shoulder to shoulder between the trees—Kagome barely has a second to breathe and hope Sesshoumaru is a good with Seimei as he seems to be with Rin before Kuzunoha asks, "Say he does as you say he will and he gives you the jewel when this is all done. What will you do when he asks you to stay?"

Kagome looks at the demoness's empty eyes and wonders what sorts of things she hears and smells and feels. Because as far as Kagome can see, that's one eventuality she doesn't have to worry about. "Oh, he won't," she says will all the confidence of someone who knows the future. She doesn't know why thinking about it pricks her heart like thorns. "He won't ask me to stay."

"He keeps you very close," Kuzunoha points out. "He is only ever more than a few steps from you when he is seeking food. Or when you bathe."

"That's because we're friends," she says and it's true. Friendship ties them together now in a way it never has before. It's going to be odd to go back to a future where he doesn't particularly like her. But maybe she's already changed how things will happen and that's not how it's going to go. Maybe he'll recognize her when she goes back (she hopes he will) or maybe he'll kill her for everything that she's messed up in his past (she hopes he won't).

Kuzunoha lets out her barking laugh again. "What an interesting idea. Why do you think he always brings you food?"

She shrugs. "He brings food for everyone."

"But he asks what _you_ want, Kagome."

"Oh, that's just because I didn't eat any of the deer that first night." Her cheeks are growing warm and she wishes they weren't. She doesn't know why she's blushing and she wishes she wasn't. She wishes she wasn't sad. She wishes Kuzunoha wasn't asking her these questions. Everything is strange enough without having to think about what Sesshoumaru will do when all this is over.

"And I can't stay, anyway," she says. "He knows that."

"Then he will ask to go with you," Kuzunoha says with a conviction of her own.

And Kagome wants to say, _When I first meet him five hundred or so years from now, he will hate humans. He'll think we're weak, pathetic things, and even if I could take him into the future with me, he wouldn't go_ but she doesn't want to give the whole game away, so what she says instead is, "Trust me. I _know_ he isn't going to do that, either."

"What makes you so sure of yourself?" Kuzunoha asks.

"I know him," she says, squirming under a scrutiny that has nothing to do with vision. "He hates humans," she throws up her arms.

"You may know _him_ , but I know dogs. A dog will bring food only for his pack. And no one who so easily accepts my son as mine can truly hate humans. Perhaps he does not know your kind; perhaps he does not understand you. But that, I think, is more due to lack of exposure than hatred. Besides, he is too slow-moving for blind hatred. Even for a dog he is single-minded. For him to come to hate humans, something would have to give him cause."

And then the fear slides into the back of her brain like an icicle: what if there _will be_ a reason that he comes to hate humans? What if, before Izayoi, it's her? After all, she wasn't able to stop the souring of relations between the Inu no Taisho and the panther king. What if something happens—she dies or she leaves—and _that's_ why he comes to hate humans? But surely, she can't be that important to him. But that line of thinking doesn't even make sense! If he really came to hate humans because of her, then all the times he'd tried to kill her in the feudal era would have to have been more personal; he didn't even know her name.

"I am _definitely_ not pack." Kagome says with a laugh. The very thought is ridiculous. "He's only known me for a week."

"But you know him well enough to know that he does not want you as pack? You know him well enough to know that he hates humans?"

"Look, it's…" and how can she explain it without giving anything away? How can she stop this line of questioning before it goes too far and bares the future like a cadaver open on a table? "…complicated."

Kuzunoha thinks about this and Kagome is half-afraid that she can hear everything she's trying to keep hidden in the silences between her words. "You have many secrets, Kagome," she says at last. "You do not tell all that you know, but I do not think that you know everything. All I ask is that you listen to what he is not saying. I would not be surprised if he didn't know all his actions gave away himself." Her gaze turned pensive. "Perhaps someone should talk about this with him, too."

"This is ridiculous," Kagome says with a shake of her head, "Anyway, it doesn't really matter. Even if he did want me to stick around, his dad's already said that he'd kill me. I think the best-case scenario is I just get out of here and never come back. Look, can we just talk about something else?"

Kuzunoha looks like she wants to say more, but nods her head respectfully. "Alright. What else would you like to discuss?"

Inspiration strikes. "How did you end up with Seimei?"

"Ah," Kuzunoha's smile widens and grows soft, "His birth-parents were killed by bandits on the edge of my territory. I took him in."

"Oh, that's so horrible!"

"Indeed," the fox agrees. Her expression grows wistful. "By the time I heard the screams, his parents were already dead, but I ate the bandits so at least he will not need to seek revenge when he is grown."

Kagome's mouth hangs open. "You _ate_ them?" For some reason, she'd assumed that Kuzunoha wasn't the type of demon to eat humans. Apparently, she was wrong.

"Well of course," she looks affronted, "I wasn't just going to waste the meat."

* * *

"Human," says Sesshoumaru. He's tied up the cuffs of his hakama and tied back the sleeves of his kimono. His armor and boots are in a neat pile on the shore. He's ankle deep in swift-moving water and he _would_ be catching fish if only the young human would stop splashing. "Human," he tries again.

When that fails a second time, he decides to try something else. He lets out a quick bark. It isn't much and it isn't particularly loud, but it gets the boy's attention. "Human," he says again, now that the boy is paying attention.

"I'm not a human," says the human and then, deflating slightly under Sesshoumaru's steady gaze, "Well, alright, I am, but you don't have to rub it in."

"Hnnn."

"You could just call me Seimei," says the boy, but at least he stops splashing. "Since I can tell you don't think I'm a proper fox."

Sesshoumaru doesn't know what to say to this, so he says nothing.

"It's alright, I don't mind. Most of the other foxes don't think I'm a proper fox, anyway. Even mother thinks I should be brought to live with humans soon. Sometimes we go into the city together, so I can learn how to behave like them. She says that someday I can decide for myself which world I want to live in."

"All young must leave home eventually," he says, because it's the only thing he can think to say. He doesn't have much experience with children. Of any species.

"That's sort of what mother says," agrees the not-human, not-demon boy. He resumes splashing.

"Human."

Splash splash splash.

"…Seimei."

The splashing stops. The boy looks up at him, eyes shining.

"You are scaring away all of the fish. If you want to learn to catch them, come here."

* * *

Once they have finished fishing, they sit on the shore and clean their catches. Seimei has caught three on his own, and he beams in pride, chatters about how he caught them, says that he can't wait to show his mother.

"Seimei," says Sesshoumaru quietly.

Seimei stills at once and turns his bright, intelligent eyes on the demon. "Yes?"

"How much do you know about human customs?" He doesn't want to have to ask, but it's either the boy or the kitsune and Sesshoumaru already doesn't like how closely she watches his interactions with the Miko.

"A bit," he says. "Like I told you, mother takes me into town sometimes."

"Why would a human avert their gaze from a demon?"

"Hmmm," the boy considers this seriously. Sesshoumaru wonders if maybe he should have just asked the kitsune instead. "There are a couple of reasons. Sometimes it's a show of respect."

"That is not the case," Sesshoumaru says quickly. One thing that has been clear since he first met the Miko is that she sees them as equals. While it was at first trying, he has come to appreciate her frank candor. She is never disrespectful, but nor is she too deferential. He considers her claim as his ally. He considers his father's disapproval.

 _Who carries a bow with no arrows?_

"Well, some people don't like making eye contact if they've got a secret. You know, if they're lying."

"Hnnn." It is true that Kagome has secrets, they are written as plain as day across her face, but she is not a liar; there is no deception in her scent.

"Oh!" Seimei says, slapping a fish against his own forehead, "Mother says that sometimes vix—er, human girls do that when they want to pair with a tod! I mean a human boy!"

Sesshoumaru is still trying to figure out what he means by _tod_ and _pair_ and what this could possibly have to do with him when Seimei leans in close to his face. He smells like fox and dirt. "Is this about Kagome?" the boy whispers, his eyes shining.

Sesshoumaru at first bristles at Seimei's familiar use of the Miko's name, but then it occurs to him that everyone—himself excluded—has done the same thing. Why should it matter if one kit does it as well? "Hnnn," he says, pushing Seimei back out of his personal space.

"If you're wondering if she likes you," he pauses, nods to himself, "She definitely likes you. I thought she was yours the way I am mother's, but she blushed so red when I asked if you were her father and she's always watching you."

It's so ridiculous that he just blinks stupidly for a few minutes.

Seimei looks thoughtful, "But we're out of the mating season, so that doesn't really make sense, either." Eventually he shrugs. "Humans are weird."

At last, something Sesshoumaru can corroborate. "Hnnn," he says, "The Miko is stranger than most."

"Or maybe she's just mad that you call her _Miko_ all the time. She's got a name. Why don't you use it? Are you shy? Is it a dog demon thing?"

* * *

When they make camp in the evening, Sesshoumaru keeps trying to catch Kagome's eye, but whenever their gazes meet, she looks away, flustered. When he looks away, he can feel her gaze on the back of his head, but he never catches her looking.

After dinner (more fish), Kagome and Seimei run through the trees, giggling and catching fireflies. She is grateful for the five minutes of peace this affords her.

Sesshoumaru, on the other hand, is just as confused as he has been all day, wrapped up in his personal thoughts. For once he does not know his own mind and this has his instincts on edge. He is fletching an arrow with Kiwani's feather. He doesn't know why he does it, but he tells himelf it's just to keep his hands busy while his mind is elsewhere.

"What troubles you, Son of the West?" Asks Kuzunoha as she comes around the fire to sit beside him. Her voice is pitched low so as not to be overheard. Her face is turned toward her son, who runs in a circle, surrounded by small, glowing insects.

He considers how to answer. He has little experience with demonesses, especially ones of her age and strength. The only one who truly comes close in either scope is his mother, and speaking with _her_ is like playing a long, drawn-out game of Shogi. She remembers everything and never hesitates to use his own words against him. Kuzunoha, on the other hand, laughs easily and enjoys the company of humans, without any riddles or games. Perhaps she will provide good council. "I am confused by humans," he confesses at last.

"All humans, or one human in particular?" She doesn't turn to look at him, for which he is grateful.

"No humans make sense," he says honestly, his own gaze returning to Kagome. She's got a firefly in her hair and she doesn't know it. It looks like a single star in a dark sky. If he knew how the gesture would be received, he'd be across the glade and pulling it out already. "But one human is particularly vexing."

"Why is that?"

 _Who carries a bow with no arrows?_ "Hnnn."

They fall into separate silences for a long time and then Kuzunoha says, "The fireflies are early this year."

It is a sentence that does not seem to need a response, so he doesn't bother to give one. Across the way, Seimei steals a furtive glance at Kagome and then blows a leaf in her direction.

"Do you remember what it was like to be in your thirteenth year?"

He glances over at her, surprised. "No," he says honestly. His father insists that he was already able to change between forms at that age, but personally he doesn't believe it. At thirteen, most pups have enough trouble always looking the same.

"Neither do I." Her smile is sad. "But at thirteen, a human is old enough to pair off."

Sesshoumaru cannot keep the alarm off of his face. That seems impossibly young. "Is this a fox trick?" He asks carefully.

"I wish it was," it sounds bitter enough to be the truth and she smells sad now, too. "And humans pair off the way dog demons pair off."

"Mate," he corrects, but now he's interested.

"Exactly."

"Explain."

"They mate for life. Or at least they usually do. And Seimei is thirteen this year."

Sesshoumaru looks across at the boy. It's so strange. He would have said he was at least one hundred, maybe more.

"I was shocked too. I didn't realize their lives went so quickly."

"Hnnn."

"And maybe now you think I am a fool. Perhaps it was stupid of me to take in as my own something that lives and dies in barely the blink of an eye. Perhaps, if I had known it then, I would have taken him straight to a human settlement and not raised him as my own. But what did I know? I have always been too busy to pair off and other than Seimei I have never had a kit of my own. By the time I realized that he was growing too fast, I was already attached. Perhaps it is because they grow and change so quickly that they inspire such fast loyalty in our kind. And now," she smiles out across the way, "I cannot imagine my life without him."

"But he will die before you," the words are out of Sesshoumaru's mouth before he can even think about how callous they sound. Now that he's said it, though, he does not regret it. The truth should never be ignored, even when it is ugly.

"There are ways around that, of course," says Kuzunoha with a wave of her hand. "If he were to mate with a proper demon, for instance, he life would be extended to match that of his mate. But there are only a handful of species for whom that would work, and I would not force him to pair off with someone against his will. He values his freedom, and I would not take that from him."

"Hnnn," he says, because he didn't know that, but he isn't very surprised. All kitsune value their freedom. Even when they aren't really kitsune, it seems.

"I will find him a mate, of course, if he wants me to, but I want him to make that decision with his eyes open. So I will bring him to Heian-kyo. I have an agreement with a man in the court. He will give him an apprenticeship."

"For how long?" It seems that humans live even shorter lives than he initially thought they did. Every day that Seimei is apprenticed to a human is another day that he won't be spending finding a mate that will extend his life.

"A few years. Longer, if he likes it."

This seems ridiculous to Sesshoumaru. A risky plan at best and a foolish one at worst. "And what will you do if he chooses to mate a human? If he lives among his kind for that long, it will not be a surprise if he chooses one from among them." Kagome is looking around for Seimei now. Sesshoumaru can hear him moving in the tree above her.

Kuzunoha's sad smile doesn't change. "Then I will wish him all the happiness in the world. More than anything, more even than wanting to keep him with me for always, I want him to be happy."

This strikes Sesshoumaru as very, very foolish. If you love something, the first and most important priority is keeping them out of harm's way. If death stalks a human's shadow, then it is most important to defeat death. The rest can be sorted out later.

He doesn't say any of this out loud, of course, but as if she can read his thoughts, Kuzunoha says, "Some day you will understand, Sesshoumaru."

They fall into silence again, each lost in their own thoughts.

There's an enormous caterpillar in the grass and Kagome screams shrilly, falling over herself in her haste to get away. Sesshoumaru is up and across the clearing before he even realizes what he's doing. As soon as his claws are through it, he realizes it was a ruse. In a puff of smoke, the shredded leaf falls to the ground. Across the glade, Kuzunoha lets out a yipping laugh.

By the time he returns to his seat, her laughter has subsided and she is staring into the distance, looking troubled.

At long last, Kuzunoha says, "A storm is coming in. It will be a large one, by the feel of it. It would be good to make it to the city early in the day."

"Hnn."


	7. Sky Full of Stars - The War of the Foxes

The War of the Foxes

A/N: There will be one more chapter after this one. It just didn't seem right tonally to have everything left be in just this one (it also would have been MASSIVE and I've been writing these one a day and…I don't have that kind of time).

"Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story.

There is no other version of this story."

Richard Siken, The Worm King's Lullaby, part 3

* * *

When the trees give way to open fields, the sky is an angry gray from one horizon to the other. The distance is hazy with rain. The air is heavy with static and humidity. Seimei runs ahead of the group, Sesshoumaru lags a short way behind, and Kagome walks beside Kuzunoha. She is telling the story of the time she and her friends helped three little monkeys find their god. Kuzunoha laughs easily; smiles with her eyes.

When (and, increasingly, _if_ ) Kagome gets back to the feudal era, she'll have to try to find Kuzunoha. If Sesshoumaru is still alive then and hardly looking any older, it doesn't seem so strange to think that Kuzunoha might be, too. She tries not to think about the cheerful boy who runs back to hand his mother a pretty stone he finds. She tries not to think what happens to a human over the course of five hundred years. She's gotten good about not thinking about that; she's got enough practice from _not_ trying to find any descendants of Sango or Miroku.

The nearer they get to the walls around Heian-kyo—old Kyoto—Kuzunoha's easy laugh fades into thoughtful silence. Kagome isn't sure why, but she can feel the trepidation washing off of the demoness the same way she can feel the approaching storm. It sets her teeth on edge.

As they walk, it gets colder and darker until Kagome isn't sure what time of day it's supposed to be. Everything is lit the strange bruise-color of twilight. The cold air stabs like needles through the thin material of her summer yukata. She folds her arms across her chest to hold in what heat she can.

Sesshoumaru is close enough to hear the stories the Miko tells to Kuzunoha but far enough that the human girl doesn't expect him to join in. as far as he's concerned, that makes this the perfect distance. He decides that he likes listening to her tell stories. He likes the fast-and-slow of her voice and the way she does the voices of all the characters, including something high-pitched for herself.

The wind whips her hair around like a living thing with a mind of its own, and he decides that he prefers dark hair to light. He likes the glint and shine of it. He considers perfection, next. He's never given much thought to female beauty; it's never seemed particularly important compared to things like weapon training and power. But if he has to say what is beautiful in a female, he thinks it must be in her large, trusting eyes and the unguarded way she smiles at him. He wonders how old she is; he'd suspected she was around his own age, but if Seimei is only thirteen, the Miko can't be much older. It's a strange thought. He wonders if she is so beautiful because she is so quickly dying. He wonders if, after a year, he'll be able to see the time on her face. He wonders if it is wrong to think her beautiful even though she is human.

But no—It was only a few days ago that his own father called her beautiful and Kiwani called her strong. Perhaps, then, it would not be terrible for him to see those features in her, too. It was no sin to admit that she was striking; it would not dishonor his pack to admit that she was pleasing to look at.

 _It is no crime to find her attractive. As long as I do not take her for a mate, there will be no trouble. Her company is pleasing. Attraction is just an extension of familiarity._ He resolves that once they have recovered the jewel he will ask her to accompany him on an exploration of his father's lands. _It will be nice_ , he thinks, _to have her company_. _At least until I find a mate and settle down._

He considers Seimei's optimistic view of the Miko's changing behavior. He wonders if it's true. Respect, lies, or affection. The trouble is that, for one as open and expressive as she is, she keeps so much hidden. It seems like it should be a paradox, but then again, she's always rewriting the rules as he knows them.

 _Who carries a bow with no arrows?_

He _still_ doesn't know.

The Miko turns her face into the wind, hugs her arms around her shoulders, and shivers. Without thinking, he removes his pelt (the one he wears over his shoulder as a sign of status and pack belonging) and drapes it across her narrow shoulders.

She looks around, surprised at the contact, but then she smiles and grasps it more tightly about herself. "You know," she says, "I used to think that this was your tail." Her hands tighten around the pelt as she holds it close, like it really is special to her. "Thank you," she says and her cheeks turn pink.

He blinks, surprised at this, but then Seimei says something and her attention goes elsewhere.

* * *

They're close enough now that Kagome can see the door in the gate and although no one is guarding it, she can't help feeling like she's not invited. Kuzunoha has been giving one-word answers for twenty or so minutes now and no matter how many tricks Seimei does, she doesn't laugh.

Suddenly she stops and Kagome stops next to her, confusion and concern warring for dominance on her face. The wind whips cold across their faces. Thunder rumbles in the distance. This will be a storm to remember.

"Son of the West," she says and she has to raise her voice so Kagome and Seimei can hear her over the howl of the building storm. "No one will mistake you for human and demons are not welcome in this settlement. Wait here. Kagome," her expression softens but her tone does not. "Will you wait with him? I will take Seimei to his master and I will ask around for information. I am sure someone will know something."

Kagome thinks Sesshoumaru will argue, but he just nods his head.

"Seimei," Kuzunoha turns to her son, "Bid farewell to Kagome and Sesshoumaru."

The boy runs back to Sesshoumaru first. He bows low, formally. "Thank you for teaching me to fish," he says seriously, using all the honorifics and polite suffixes that he knows. "I will not forget the kindness you showed me." He looks up at the demon lord, grinning cheekily, "And I've always liked that kimono you wear. The flowers are pretty."

Before Sesshoumaru even has time to decide how he wants to react to the boy's parting words, Seimei is already beside Kagome. "Can you guys not listen for a minute? I want to say goodbye to Kagome in private," Seimei says very loudly.

Sesshoumaru doesn't want to go, but Kuzunoha says, "Give the boy his chance to say goodbye," and so they speed far enough away that they cannot hear. "This should be far enough," she says when they've stopped moving, hidden among the trees.

"I can still hear them," Sesshoumaru points out. "As, I am sure, you can."

"But not even you can see their mouths move from this distance," Kuzunoha smiles the satisfied smile of a proud parent. "He just meant he wanted us far enough away that you cannot read his lips. He can take care of the sound all on his own."

Sesshoumaru watches as Seimei pulls a leaf out of the sleeve of his haori and tucks it into his hair. There is a small puff of smoke, and then it is as if there is a small pocket in his hearing range where the human voices should be.

"Kagome," Seimei says once his spell is in place.

"They really can't hear us?" Kagome asks in interest, eying the leaf in his hand.

"Nope, but we've only got a few minutes before your demon lord starts to get suspicious."

"Why would he—oof."

She's caught off-guard when Seimei collides with her middle, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist. He's tall enough that his head collides with her collar bone. Her hands come up and wrap around his back once she realizes that he's crying. He also makes small, high-pitched whining noises that sound more fox than human.

"I'm sorry. I know it's not proper," he mumbles into her shoulder. "But I'm really going to miss you."

"Hey," she says, rubbing soothing circles into his back. "I might see you again. There's no guarantee that we'll find her. And even if we do, who knows if the well will be—"

He shakes his head, pulling away and wiping his eyes. "No, Kagome," he says, and when he looks at her, his eyes are dry. He meets her gaze steadily, and then she can feel it. His power uncoils the same way youki uncoils from around a demon, but it isn't demonic energy. It isn't spiritual energy, either. It's something completely different. And it's strong. "I _know_ ," he says it with such certainty that there is no room left for disbelief. "I've known since I first saw you in the woods. This is where we say good bye."

She doesn't know what to say.

"I won't forget you," he says and she knows he means it. "Thanks for telling me all about the future. It sounds really neat. I'm sorry I won't get to see it, but I'll try to make things ok here, too."

"I never said—"

"You didn't need to, Kagome. I told you already: I knew. Actually, mother says I'm not supposed to tell anyone about the things I know, but you'll be gone soon enough. I'll always remember you, though. We all will."

"Gone?"

"But I'm not going to tell you what that means. You'll just have to see for yourself. Just don't forget what I've said, ok?"

She smiles down at him. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"

Lightning cracks the sky. They both turn to look at it.

"This is going to be a huge storm," he says.

She can feel tears prickling her eyes. This really does feel like the end of something. She just doesn't know what yet. "You just know that, too?"

The magic coils around him once again and then she can't tell it's there at all. He smiles, and it's the same impish grin he always wears. "Nah," he says, "I'm just guessing."

And then he pulls the leaf out of his hair, shreds it between his fingers, and waves toward the line of trees where Kuzunoha and Sesshoumaru are two white dots on the horizon. "Ok!" He calls, "You can come back now! I'm done saying good bye!"

All of a sudden Sesshoumaru's face is much too close to hers. "Miko," he says solemnly, "Why are you crying?"

She wipes furiously at her cheeks. "Oh," she sniffs, tries to stop the tears. She smiles even though she doesn't feel like smiling. "I'm just not very good at good byes."

He straightens up and looks over at Seimei. "Hnnn," he says.

"Oh, don't be such a grouch," she tells him.

"You smell like him."

"Yeah," she says, "We were saying goodbye."

"Humans are not fond of physical contact."

She's so surprised that she stops crying and lets out a startled laugh. "What on earth made you think that? Humans like to be touched by the people we care about just as much as demons do."

She glances over to where Kuzunoha is nosing industriously at Seimei's hair. She tries to lick the side of his face but, since she is in human form, she mostly just gets a mouth full of hair.

"Maybe _almost_ as much," Kagome corrects.

With a leaf on her head, Kuzunoha suddenly looks like a middle-aged human woman.

"Wow," Kagome says, walking around the demoness once. "That's really, really convincing."

"Hnnn," says Sesshoumaru, "You even smell human."

"What do humans smell like?" Kagome asks, curious.

"Everyone smells different," he explains.

"What do I smell like, then?"

Sesshoumaru, much to her surprise, goes slightly pink. Seimei snickers behind his mother's back and even Kuzunoha lets out a yip of laughter.

"That's not something I'm supposed to ask, is it?" Kagome murmurs, wringing her hands.

"It's very…personal," Kuzunoha says in what Kagome suspects might be a huge understatement. "But thank you both for your kind words. I will take my leave with confidence. I suggest you two take this chance to take shelter from the storm. I'll find you once Seimei is settled."

The first fat drops of rain begin to fall as Seimei and Kuzunoha walk through the gate. Kagome wants to stay until they're completely gone, but very soon the rain is coming down in such heavy sheets that any visibility at all is impossible. She hugs Sesshoumaru's pelt tightly across her shoulders and says, "Let's head for the trees."

He says something, but she can't hear him, and suddenly he sweeps her up in his arms. Ignoring her shout of surprise, he's streaking across the field and into the copse of trees. Lightning brightens the sky for a mere fraction of a second and thunder rumbles like a hungry beast.

She's still breathing hard; shock has her heart stuttering in her throat and she laughs like a wild thing. She's cradled in his pelt, held in his arms, her small hands wrapped around the edges of his armor. His eyes are better than hers. In the light that shines around the storm and shatters in the raindrops, she looks like the night sky covered in stars. Water's got her hair curling around his hand like it loves him and she smiles up at him. He doesn't think he's ever seen anything quite as beautiful as she is in this moment.

When she looks at him, he is the only bright thing in all of the dark and gloom. He's invincible, she decides, adrenaline shining in her eyes. He is a force of nature. He is the only hope in all of this hopeless life. He is a star; millions of miles from where she is and a perfect giant in her sky. Wherever he is in all of that empty distance between her and infinity, he is burning, burning, burning and she can see the fire of it in his eyes in the heart-dropping moment before his lips, cool and wet and perfect, crash down over hers.

He smells like rain, cold and clean, and the dark places between old trees. He is a mess of contradictions. He is soft and hard; demanding and patient; when her mouth opens against his, demanding more, he reciprocates and the tips of fangs brush against her bottom lip but do not hurt. His claws curl in her hair and scrape against her scalp sending a delicious shock up her spine. She hums in pleasure, her hand leaving its perch on his armor to slide up the sharp line of his jaw, the pad of her thumb pressing circles into the soft skin of his stripes. His chest vibrates with a rumble of approval and when the tips of her blunt nails scrape against the shell of his ear and he sucks in a sudden, surprised breath, then _oh_ , she likes that and how can she make him do that again?

Lightning snakes down and a tree to their left explodes as thunder snaps loud against their ears. She pulls back with a startled cry. The air smells like tin and burning wood. The jagged stump is smoking slightly. Her chest heaves with the combination of shock and pleasure and when she looks back at Sesshoumaru he still hasn't moved. His eyes are hooded and still fixed on her mouth. He licks his lips, and then he dips his head toward hers again.

But she smacks her small hands against his cheeks before he can kiss her again and make her lose focus. "Sesshoumaru," she says, and slowly his gaze lifts to her eyes. "Focus."

Then it's as if a spell is broken and his golden gaze slides to the broken remnants of the tree.

Thunder laughs like it's told a funny joke.

He looks back at her.

"You," he says at last. This voice is quiet behind the static shush of rain and the howl of the growing wind, "Are dangerous."

Surprise and hurt color her face for a moment, but then a smile breaks over it like a sunrise after the rain. And then she's laughing and he can't help it—he smiles down at her. Really smiles.

It's the first time that she can ever remember him truly smiling, and it is so beautiful that it catches her breath. "You," she says without even realizing she's saying it out loud, "Are beautiful."

He doesn't know what to say to that. He's never been called beautiful before and part of him thinks that he ought to be offended, since beautiful is what females are, but the rest of him is still just happy to have her in his arms, so in the end, he just says, "Hnnn," and runs the backs of his fingers over her cheek, marveling at the softness of her skin.

A tree behind them groans and he only just manages to jump out of the way before it topples over, taking two more trees down with it. He lands softly on the fallen tree, Kagome clinging desperately to his armor.

"That was close," she says and he can hear the fear in the shake of her voice.

"No," he says evenly, and he sets her on her feet. "You were never in danger."

She stands on the slippery bark, not daring to go far, and gives him a little smile. She knows he's trying to reassure her. She thinks about how, five hundred years from now, he will save her from Mukotsu and then disappear without a word. "I know," she says, and she's surprised by how much she means it. "I'm safe with you."

He regards her seriously. No one has ever called him safe before. But before the Miko—before Kagome—no one ever called him many things.

"I wonder if it's a typhoon," she says thoughtfully, looking out at the raging storm. "It's going to be really hard to find anything in this mess."

He finds his mind travelling to the jewel they are looking for and, without his consent, he finds himself wondering what will happen when they have it. Duty binds him to bringing it to his father, but what about her? What about Kagome?

She's worrying her bottom lip. "I hope Kuzunoha and Seimei are ok," she says. "Do you think they're ok?" Water is starting to collect in the lower parts of the field between their copse of trees and the walls of the city.

Her face is turned away from him, facing the storm. Her yukata clings to her narrow shoulders and his pelt is draped around her like it belongs there. He likes the way it looks with her dark hair spilling across it and then a strange thought hits him: If she were a demoness, males would fight to the death for a chance to see her smile. If she were a princess, poets would throw themselves at her feet for a chance to write verses in her name. But she is not a princess and she is not a demoness. She is just a little human Miko and humans don't live very long. She will be gone in the blink of an eye and her frailty makes her seem even more beautiful. He wants to keep her. And because he is not a liar, because he is proud and strong, because he has always gone after what he wants, he says, "Stay with me."

It isn't a question but she hears it as a question. And she thinks about it. She really thinks about it. "The jewel," she says. She worries her bottom lip with her teeth. She remembers what his mouth felt like pressed over hers. She thinks about her friends in the far-off future. She thinks about her family and their patient wait for her return. She tries to come up with reasons why she should say no, but then she thinks of his unguarded smile, of all the small moments she's shared with him, and all the good reasons in the world don't seem like enough. She is tempted.

It isn't a question but he hears it as a question. "It will be safe in my father's kingdom."

And maybe she can do it. Maybe it really _would_ be safe here, at least until she can think of a selfless wish that will make it disappear for good. After all, Naraku can't get to it here. And maybe she can stay with Sesshoumaru. Maybe she can change the way things turn out. Maybe, if she stays, he won't hate humans so much. Maybe, if she stays, when Izayoi and then Inuyasha come into his life, he'll welcome them. Maybe, if she stays, when their father dies he will be the big brother Inuyasha always needed but never had. Maybe things will be different. Maybe this is what she was supposed to do all along. She can feel the smile spreading across her face and suddenly she doesn't mind the rain so much since it's helping to cool her burning cheeks. There's only one problem left: "What will your father say?"

He can see the _yes_ shining in her lovely eyes. He can feel victory on in the tips of his claws. "It will not be a problem. As long as I take a demoness as a mate, he will have no quarrel with your presence."

The only sound she can hear is the thudding of her own, stupid heart in her ears. She is cold. So cold. Impossibly cold. It spreads from the center of her chest out to her hands and her feet. Strangely, she doesn't mind it. Feeling cold is so much better than feeling sad. _A demoness as a mate_. She thinks about all those nights when she knew Inuyasha missed Kikyo. She thinks of all those times when he ran off to save the undead miko; his original and only love. Kagome thinks about what it means to be a consolation prize, and she unwraps the pelt from around her shoulders. When she shoves it back into his arms, she is surprised that her hands do not shake.

"What do you say, Miko?" He asks as his hands close around the pelt. "Will you stay?" He doesn't understand the hurt he sees reflected in her eyes. He doesn't understand her sudden stillness.

And she cannot think of anything to say to that, so she just shoulders her pack, jumps down from log, and starts to walk.

"Miko," he says again, but she doesn't stop. She doesn't even turn around.

She thinks of all the other people who that name could apply to. She thinks of the _real_ priestess, the one she's never managed to live up to no matter how hard she tries.

He follows after her. After a dozen paces in which she still has not spoken, he closes his hand around her wrist. "You will answer me, Miko," he commands.

And when she turns to face him, the rage burns in her eyes. "Don't call me that," she hisses and she tears her wrist out of his grasp. "Don't you ever call me Miko ever again."

He doesn't understand why she's so angry. He doesn't understand why she is walking away. He is so caught up in not understanding that he does nothing at all as her footfalls get quieter and quieter until she's disappeared completely.

* * *

She knows that if she stops walking, she'll get sad. So she keeps walking. She focuses on the wind screaming through the trees. She focuses on the cold rain beating down on her. Infuriatingly, eventually the thoughts start to creep back in anyway, getting in through the cracks where the rain and wind howl around her.

 _He doesn't want to keep you forever; he just wants to keep you for now._

 _Only ever just a priestess._

And so she starts to run. She isn't running to anything or running from anything. She's just running because it's something to do. She runs between trees and she slips down embankments and she gets up and she keeps going. She runs and she runs until she feels it.

It's a familiar tug. It's black, black, black. And she knows where it is.

She doesn't stop running, but now she knows where she's going.

* * *

When the white fox crashes through the trees, he is still staring at the place where Kagome disappeared.

"Where is Kagome?" The fox growls in a language that is not meant for human ears.

"Gone," he replies because it's as much of the truth as he understands.

"What did you do?"

Fury flares bright in his eyes for a moment, but it burns itself out just as quickly as it appeared. "I asked her to stay."

"There is more to the story than that. But there is no time for it now. I know where Kurumi has taken the jewel. We must leave now. If the storm is any indication, it may already be too late."

* * *

She knows where it is. She can feel it calling and calling to her. She stumbles and she falls. Twigs tear at her yukata. Rocks scrape her hands. But she gets up and she keeps going. The strap of her pack tears, and she drops it. It's too heavy to keep carrying now, anyway. Her bow and arrows are enough. It's calling and calling to her. She is the Shikon Miko.

She's at the base of a mountain and is surprised to find herself staring up a flight of steps toward a brightly-painted tori gate.

"A shrine?" she asks out loud, wiping rain water out of her eyes. It seems familiar but she isn't sure why. Maybe she's been here before. Maybe there's something she's supposed to remember about this place.

But there's no mistaking the tug of the jewel, so she starts to climb.

* * *

"Do you know where she went?" Kuzunoha growls.

He snarls in reply. He doesn't bother with words. They are both transformed, two streaks of white crashing through a rain-choked forest. He follows close behind her.

He almost runs into her when she stops suddenly, nosing something on the ground.

He stops beside her. It's Kagome's pack.

"We must hurry."

* * *

"Hello?" Kagome calls, sliding open the door of the shrine. She's out of breath from all of the running and her hurried climb. It's too dark to see anything within the shrine, but she can feel the jewel. It feels like it's everywhere inside the room. But she can't see it. Something feels wrong, although she can't put her finger on what it is. She grips her bow tightly. "Kurumi?"

"Who are you?" It's a soft alto voice. Kagome isn't sure if it's male or female. "What do you want?"

"My name's Kagome," she replies. "I'm here looking for someone. Who are you?"

"Oh!" The voice sounds excited. "Are you a friend of Kurumi's?"

"You know Kurumi?" The jewel's power thrums darkly nearby. She glances around in the darkness.

"Of course! The dear thing came to see me a few days ago. She needed help."

Kagome can't help but feel relieved. "Are you a priest or a priestess here? Sorry, it's so dark. I can't see anything."

"Oh do excuse me," the voice tuts. "Where are my manners?" And all of a sudden, the interior of the shrine is lit up by hundreds of candles burning all around the walls. Kagome blinks against the sudden brightness. "Is that better?"

The first thing Kagome sees is a mass of purple fur laying in the center of the room. The second thing she sees is the pool of dried blood all around it. "Kurumi!" she shouts, and hurries toward it. The kitsune is laying on her side, her amber eyes open but staring unseeingly forward. The fur on her flank is matted with blood and peppered with bite marks; the remnants of her fight with Sesshoumaru's pack. Her head is tilted at a strange angle, her throat cut open so wide that it looks like a wide, grinning mouth.

"Oh, Kurumi," Kagome says, her voice hushed in horror and sadness. She pats the top of Kurumi's head. Her fur is cold. "Kurumi."

"Don't be sad," says the voice again. "She hardly suffered at all."

Kagome whirls around the room, fumbling in her quiver for an arrow. The room seems to be completely empty. There's a little small altar at the back of the room with a little mirror set upon it, reflecting the gray sky outside, but otherwise even the walls are bare. "Where are you?" She asks, "What are you?"

"What about you?" asks the voice. "You seem to be human, but you can see me and you stink like a dog and a fox. But then again, you don't look like much and you are dressed so plainly. Are you a priestess or a princess?"

She can feel her mouth go dry. She looks at the mirror sitting harmlessly on the little altar. "Are you the god of this shrine?" she asks, her voice shaking. "Did you kill Kurumi?"

The voice laughs. It's a nice laugh. Youthful and indulgent. "You're clever!" it says, rich with admiration. In the mirror, something moves. "You guessed it on the first try!" There is a face in the mirror now, far away and getting larger. "As a reward, I'll tell you who I am. I am the god of foxes, rice, and sake." She can see the face clearly now. It is frame by bright black hair. It is smiling. It is beautiful. "I am the god of prosperity and success. I rule all things on this mountain and all people upon these lands." And then the figure is standing in front of the mirror, dressed all in white and smiling across the little room at where Kagome stands beside the fallen demoness. "I am Inari. And you are in my shrine."

And Kagome can see the jewel now. It shines bright black from the center of Inari's chest. "The jewel!" she gasps.

Inari looks down at herself. "Oh, you can see it? I guess you're the priestess Kurumi mentioned."

"You talked to her before you killed her?" Kagome is appalled.

"Oh yes." Inari nods enthusiastically. "She was half-crazed when she got here, with pain and fear. She didn't know what it was, you know. All she said was that it belonged to the priestess. But she wasn't in her right mind. The jewel did something to her; took her away from herself. So I put her out of her misery."

"And then you took the jewel."

"Well, yes and no," Inari says thoughtfully, "I thought I would just keep it safe until I could find someone to trust with it, but I think it had other plans." She smiles too wide. Kagome can see the madness in her bright eyes. "It speaks, you know. And it has such a lovely voice."

"Let me purify it," says Kagome, "Please. It isn't safe."

"Safe?" Inari laughs. "Of course it's not _safe_. But then whatever is? No, I will not give it to you, Miko. With this jewel, I am more powerful, more myself than I have ever been. With this jewel, there is no one more powerful than me. There is no door that will be closed. No end to the things that I can do."

Kagome reaches slowly back for an arrow.

As if on cue, the thunder rolls outside. Inari smiles. "Do you like the storm I've made?" she asks. "It took me two days to get everything just right, but now it's done and it's free. It will rage forever, or at least until I decide that I'm bored with storms. All shall hear my name in the rush of the wind and all will know what fear is."

"You're insane," Kagome says, hoping to keep the god distracted. "The jewel's made you crazy. If you just let me purify it—"

"With your silly little bow and arrows?" Inari laughs, high and bright. "Shoot me, priestess," she says, and raises her hand as if to slap Kagome across the face, which is impossible from half the little room away, "You cannot kill a god. But watch how easily I will kill you."

And then the doorway explodes.

Something huge and white barrels into Inari just as something else yanks Kagome around the waist and pulls her clear of the wreckage. She screams, but then she's being set down against a tree half a dozen paces from the now crumbling shrine. Kuzunoha, in her fox form, has Inari pinned under her front paws and Sesshoumaru, in his human form, is drawing his sword and walking slowly away from her.

Inari, pinned between two massive claws, laughs and laughs.

Then there is a massive sucking sensation, like an enormous vacuum and there is a massive nine-tailed fox where Inari was, flinging Kuzunoha backward into the air. Sesshoumaru's lightning whip flashes out, catching the god across the face. Inari heals almost instantly, but in the half second in which she turns to face Sesshoumaru, who darts away from the swipe of a massive paw, Kuzunoha is back, clamping her jaws down around the fox god's neck.

"The jewel's in her chest!" Kagome screams. "Right where her heart is!"

Sesshoumaru glances toward her just as Inari swipes a forepaw around, tumbling backwards with Kuzunoha. His eyes lock with hers. He nods.

The foxes tumble over and over, a mass of light and dark fur, flattening trees and snarling. When they finally still, Kuzunoha is on top, her white muzzle covered in pink gore as it lifts from Inari's prone form. Kagome's heart soars. But before she can so much as take a relieved breath in, Kuzunoha is covered in black flame, yelping in pain.

Sesshoumaru is a streak of light, darting around Inari, slicing and cutting with both sword and whip. Inari snarls, snapping at him.

The god chases after him, leaving Kuzunoha a fiery mess. Shakily, the kitsune gets to her feet, still on fire. The air stinks like burning fur.

Kagome watches as if in slow motion as Inari's jaws close around Sesshoumaru. She hears the snap of breaking bone. Something inside Kagome snaps and she finds herself springing into action. She notches her bow and aims for the jewel. She prays. The arrow sings with purity and embeds itself in Inari's chest, directly where she was aiming, but nothing happens. Inari drops Sesshoumaru's limp body and looks down at the arrow.

She opens her mouth and laughs. "Foolish priestess," she says and although she has no human mouth, her voice remains unchanged. "I am a god. Your arrows cannot harm me. And even if you could," Kagome screams as horrible images fill her mind. Images of a future without a god. Fields lay barren. Cities turn to ash. Foxes, caught in traps and torn apart by starving hands. "There would be no Japan without me."

And she lunges.

But Sesshoumaru, now a giant white dog, barrels into her side, knocking her off course.

And Kagome is frozen, watching as Sesshoumaru and Inari clash, spring apart, and clash again. Lightning flashes across the sky. The rain drives down in ugly sheets. Kuzunoha joins the fray again, no longer on fire but clearly badly burned. She's moving slowly and her white fur is streaked with ash and soot, but she and Sesshoumaru work together, taking turns to snap at Inari and spring back, keeping the god locked between them.

But Kagome knows it isn't going to work. Gods aren't like demons. They cannot be killed. Not by purity, not by strength. As long as their artifact remains intact…

Her eyes grow wide as she figures it out. She stumbles over her own feet as she runs toward what is left of the shrine. There's a high-pitched howl of pain behind her and a sick, wet, ripping sound, but she doesn't pay it any attention. She's scrambling through timbers, trying not to mind when slivers tear into her hands or the awful strain on her tired limbs. And then she's found it.

It glints in the light. She raises an arrow in her hand like a dagger, summons her strength—

and a mouth closes gently over her, yanking her away just as the bolt of lightning sings down right where she had just been. She looks up into the monstrous red eyes of Sesshoumaru. He sets her gently down at the edge of the trees and she can feel the surge and coil of youki as he changes shape. The demon, when he stands before her, is covered in blood, which flows freely from several wounds.

"Sesshoumaru!" She says, her voice breaking as she closes the distance between them. In the background, the yips and snarls of the fox fight continue.

He runs a clawed hand over her cheek, leaving a bloody streak. "Kagome," and it's the first time he uses her name and it's shock more than anything that gives her pause. "Listen to me. We cannot win."

"No," she begins, "Listen—"

"Kagome," he says again, more forcefully this time, "You must get away from here while you can. Inari is too strong. I will hold her off. Perhaps I may transform one more time, but that will be all. Do not cry for me," he commands and tucks a lock of soggy hair behind her ear, "Dying to protect you. I could not ask for a more honorable death."

"No," she wails.

"I," he begins, but the pounding of paws behind them cuts the conversation short. He is away from her, transforming again and meeting Inari. They rear onto their hind legs as they clash, all shining teeth and snapping jaws.

Kagome can feel the anger burning bright in her chest. _No_. She will _not_ let him die here. She reaches back into her quiver and her hands close around an arrow. She can feel the power thrumming painfully under her skin.

She pulls the arrow out and is faintly surprised by the red, green, and white feather at its end. Sesshoumaru had fletched this arrow for her. Kiwani had given this feather for her. If there's ever a time to use it, it's now. "Hit the mirror," she whispers and takes aim for the tiny reflective circle in the center of the fight.

She doesn't see it hit the mirror. All she sees is an overwhelming light and then there's the sound of breaking glass and a scream that's neither animal nor human, but something much worse than either.

When the light fades, Kagome finds herself staring out at the ruined shrine. There are two large white bodies and the black glint of the jewel between them, but no sign of Inari. She stumbles forward toward them. She reaches Sesshoumaru first. His eyes are shut and he is covered in blood, but his chest rises and falls in steady breaths. She reaches Kuzunoha next. She still steams faintly and Kagome can see clearly where her fur has been burned off completely, patches of flesh black and oozing where they are exposed. What hasn't been burned seems to bleed. Her eyes are open. Her breathing is ragged. "Kagome," it isn't a human voice, but it's a voice she recognizes.

"I'm here," she tells the fox. "It's going to be ok," she lies. "You'll be fine."

"I am…dying," speaking seems to cause her pain. She moves her head slightly. It looks like it takes a lot of effort.

"No you're not," Kagome insists.

"The god…is dead?"

"Yeah. We did it. All together."

"If there is…no god…the land is…doomed." And Kuzunoha's eyes close. Her breathing slows.

And now Kagome is the only one awake. The storm rages around them still and she sees the horrible truth in Kuzunoha's words. The land _is_ doomed. For half a second, Inari had shown her what would become of the land without a god, and that was enough. Kagome can feel the future unraveling underneath and around her.

On wooden legs, Kagome crosses to the jewel. As soon as her hands close around it, it glows pink and pure. "Stupid thing," she murmurs. "Not even a wish could save us now."

But then she hears what she just said, and she freezes. There is an infinite number of wishes she could make. She could wish Sesshoumaru better, she could wish Kuzunoha alive again, she could wish herself back in her own time on her proper timeline. She could wish for _anything_ , but as she stands there in the rain, she knows that there is only one wish that will put everything right, one wish that will give her nothing that she wants but everything the world needs.

So she makes it. The jewel glows brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter until Kagome is sure that she's about to be engulfed in flames, and then the pain is too much and the world goes black.

* * *

 _Kagome._

She is sleeping so peacefully and she feels so safe.

 _Kagome_.

She doesn't want to wake up. Far away, she can hear rain pounding on a roof.

 _Wake up, Kagome._ The voice is soft and gentle, but insistent.

Blearily, Kagome opens her eyes. She's on a wooden floor, staring at the hem of a white kimono. Everything leading up to this moment comes back to her, gently. She isn't worried anymore. She sits up, rubbing sleep from her eyes, and looks at the demoness. "Did it work?" her voice is hoarse.

Kuzunoha smiles brilliantly down at her. _It worked_ , she confirms and Kagome realizes that she isn't hearing the voice out loud, but inside her own head.

"Good," she says, smiling up at the kitsune.

 _I am the new Inari_.

"I'm sure you'll be a great one."

 _Why did you do it?_ asks the goddess. _Without the jewel, you will not be able to return home. Without the jewel, you have nothing that ties you to Sesshoumaru_.

"Yeah," she says, her smile shrinking, "But Kyoto needs a god. The _world_ needs land gods."

 _It was a truly unselfish wish_.

Kagome just shrugs.

Kuzunoha, the new Inari, smiles widely down at her. _But there is something that you did not take into account when you made your wish. There is still some magic left over from the jewel and I can think of nothing better to use it on than you. I do not have the strength to send you all the way back to your own time, but if we work fast, I think, perhaps, I can get you half way there._

* * *

Sesshoumaru opens his eyes slowly. He is lying flat on his back in the center of a clearing. The sky above him is clear. Sometime while he was unconscious, the storm blew itself out. He looks around, but there is no sign of Kuzunoha, Inari, Kagome, or, he realizes with a sinking heart, the jewel. He sniffs delicately, sifting through the scents of the forest, looking for trails that he could follow. But the rain has washed away every trace of life. There is no path for him to follow.

On the ground a few feet away is a quiver of arrows, spilled at some point and abandoned by their owner.

 _Who carries a bow with no arrows?_

He stares up at the sky. Above him, a sky full of stars stares back.


	8. SessKag2017 - The Stars, Returning

The Stars, Returning

XXX

Of course, he looks for her. At first, he tells himself that he's only looking for the jewel; that it doesn't really matter if she is with it or not. He turns his back on the shrine and doesn't bothering entering the strangely-intact wooden structure. He can feel a god spirit resting within it—no doubt it's Inari sleeping off her injuries now that her moment of insanity has passed. Although he doesn't blame Inari for his separation from his companions, he doesn't want to waste any more time in her presence.

So he searches the woods. He spirals outward from the shrine until he's combed the entire mountainside and surrounding country. He doesn't know how long he slept before his injuries were healed, but it doesn't feel like it's been _that_ long and how can a human just disappear so effectively with a beacon of power like the jewel? Of course, she's got Kuzunoha with her, and old foxes know enough tricks to have become old foxes, so maybe it isn't so surprising after all. He transforms and searches from the sky. He can smell hundreds of humans. He can hear thousands of lives being lived below him. None of them are her. None of them have the jewel.

When he comes upon a family of foxes, he asks if they have seen the Lady of the Wood. They haven't. Maybe they're keeping secrets, but foxes are solitary creatures and most of them go their whole lives without ever having much to do with their de facto ruler, so he finally decides that they're probably telling the truth.

It occurs to him that Seimei might know, but he doesn't like the idea of entering a human settlement. Not yet, anyway. Not until he's exhausted all other options. He knows the jewel isn't there. He knows Kagome isn't there.

As the days accumulate behind him, his anger grows hot in his chest. Kagome had never sworn loyalty to him, never even agreed to stay with him, but he still feels as though she robbed him of something by leaving. When he finds her, there will be words.

So he travels farther. He traces his footsteps back into his father's kingdom and then all the way back to where he found her fighting a centipede demon beside a well. He even tries jumping in it. When that fails, he drains it. At the bottom, he finds a water-warped quiver of arrows, but no portal to another place.

He wonders if it's because he has spent so long with a human that it feels like lifetimes ago that he found her there, or if it's just because it was raining then and it's sunny now. He doesn't return to his father's castle despite the fact that his father is probably getting annoyed with his absence. He doesn't stop in to see Kiwani, despite the fact that the pheasant would want to know that Kagome is gone. He isn't ready to admit defeat just yet.

He travels to the north, where the air is cold at night. He crosses mountains and valleys. He visits shrines and settlements. He wears the land down under his boots. But then the weather turns crisp and cold and the leaves begin to turn red and eventually he decides that she isn't to the north. He travels to the south, where the nights never seem to come at all. It rains all winter and the rain reminds him of her and puts him in a foul mood. He fights anyone who crosses him, just because they cross him. There is no sign of the jewel. There is no sign of Kuzunoha. There is no sign of Kagome.

Sometimes he replays the conversations they had together in his head. Sometimes he imagines what she would say about a particularly beautiful vista or a particularly troublesome fight. The more he thinks about her, the angrier he gets. What right had she to leave? What cause had he given her to go? _Who carries a bow with no arrows?_ He didn't have any answers and that just made it worse. The anger is a fire that eats itself. It keeps him moving forward. He wastes enemies and strangers and still it burns bright. He walks for days, weeks, months with no sleep and still he is burning.

At last he travels to the continent. It's a long journey, but he figures that maybe Kagome has returned to her own country with the jewel, so he searches there. He fights foreign monsters. He gets stronger. He hates the rain and he's starting to get desperate. The anger that has kept him going is slowly turning into something else. Concern. He doesn't care if he finds the jewel anymore. If no one is ruining the world with it, it's probably safe, but Kagome is a small human female who trusts too easily and can't walk quietly in the woods.

When he comes to an ocean at the other end of the world, he finally admits to himself that he misses her. He's got questions he wants to ask her, sure, but mostly he just wants to have her back. He's seen more places that he can name and many interesting things, but there's no one to share them with. He's learned how to speak to the strange foreign creatures. No one has seen a girl that matches Kagome's description, and the farther he gets from home, the stranger the humans look. He searches the whole world but cannot find her.

At last he decides to bite the bullet and go ask Seimei. He figures, if nothing else, he'll at least know where his mother has gone and then perhaps Kuzunoha will know where to find Kagome. So Sesshoumaru returns to Heian-kyo, only to find that Seimei—or Abe no Seimei as the people call him—is already dead, survived by an ancient human female who was his mate and a host of full-grown children. It's a strange notion. He's hardly aged at all and Seimei, who he still sees in his mind as thirteen and energetic, neither fox nor human, died old. He visits Seimei's grave to find that the little thief stole the pattern of kikyo flowers from Sesshoumaru's kimono and used it as a family crest! Even dead he's troublesome. The thought is somehow comforting and brings a small smile to his face. Sesshoumaru resolves that he will buy a new patterned kimono and send the one he currently wears to Seimei's family as a gift.

But learning that Seimei is dead does what thousands of miles and countless bodies could not: it cools the flame of anger in his chest and leaves him nothing but cold inside.

He knows now that, if he ever finds Kagome she will be old. He also knows that with every passing day his chances of finding her grows slimmer and slimmer. Humans grow and fade over a handful of seasons. But even if she's as shriveled and as old as Seimei's mate, it won't matter to him. He's got stories to tell her. He's got a lifetime of living to hear about from her.

Because he's running out of time, and because he truly means to send the kimono to Seimei's family before _they're_ all dead, too, he goes directly to his father's castle from Heian-kyo. When he gets there, he's surprised to find his parents united for once. In anger. At him.

"Do you have any idea how _long_ you've been gone, Sesshoumaru?" His mother asks. Her tone is light but her eyes promise murder.

"IT'S BEEN SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS YOU DAMN WHELP!" His father bellows so loud that the entire castle shakes.

And they're so angry about his prolonged absence that they don't say anything about the jewel. But they do demand that he remain on their lands for a few years to "make up for lost time," as his mother brightly said.

"I cannot," he says and this is the first time he's outright refused one of his father's commands.

Toga is too stunned to speak, so his wife does it for him. "Why not?" she asks.

He is not a liar. He will not hide or embellish the truth, even from his parents. "I must find Kagome," he says plainly.

His father's face falls and contorts with confusion. He can see pity glimmering behind his mother's amused mask.

"Humans age quickly," his mother says gently. "Seventy-five years is a long time for a human."

"She'll be old now, pup," says his father, his voice is husky. "She won't be good looking anymore."

Sesshoumaru can't see why that's relevant to the discussion at hand. "There are many things I wish to discuss with her," he says simply.

"You won't have much time," says his mother, "Even if you find her and even if all you do is talk until she perishes, it will amount to a handful of years at most. You will never have all the time you need with her."

But he's considered this. He knows that humans don't have very long, but he also knows that demons have time enough to share. And because he has never been anything other than brave, he tells his parents his plan. "Then the solution is obvious: I will extend her life." His voice is loud and clear. All declarations of war should be.

All the air seems to drain out of the room in the silence that greets his proclamation.

"You would," his mother begins. She glances at his father, who seems to be frozen in place. "Take a…human female…as…a mate?" She has trouble getting out all the words. Her syllables are minced. Careful. Measured.

But Sesshoumaru anticipated this sort of reaction. He looks between his parents, and then Mitsuki who is waiting in the shadows for his mother's command. "Your mate is unconventional, mother," he points out. "You have no mate at all, father. Yet between you, you have the only heir of the West. I am a demon. My blood is strong because it is yours. I will not dilute it by siring pups with a human, but I will mate whom I please. Just as _you_ _both_ have done."

"Don't be ridiculous" his father booms, rage contorting his face. "That's a completely different—"

"And if she is already dead?" his mother asks.

"Humans aren't even…"

He just stares at his mother and tunes out his father's voice. He's considered that she might be dead, of course, but he cannot ignore the hope that she isn't. "You have seen what the jewel she carries is capable of," he says calmly, despite his father's continued tirade. "Perhaps it will keep her alive past the normal span of human years."

His mother considers this and eventually even his father, too, lapses into thought.

"You wish to continue your search," his mother observes. She nods once. "Very well."

"WHAT?!" His father snarls. "I forbid it."

"You may search until you discover what has happened to Kagome. Once you have learned the truth, you will return here. At which point you will _not_ wander as freely has we have allowed you to do until now. You will remain here—at _home_ —until we have decided that you may be permitted to travel at your leisure once again." Says his mother, completely ignoring his father.

"Hnnn," he says, and it is decided.

XXX

He searches for years. Eventually he hears about a powerful priestess who is said to have enough power to destroy a demon with a single blow.

He remembers watching Kagome wielding her bow like a sword and the wave of terrible purity that washed over him as the centipede demon was blown to smithereens.

 _Who carries a bow with no arrows?_

Someone who doesn't need arrows to use the bow as a weapon!

The demon he learns this from doesn't mention a jewel of power, but perhaps that is not the sort of information that travels well. Hope wriggles between his ribs and he travels faster.

When he eventually finds her, she is dressed like a war queen and she carries a sword. Her attention is so fixed on the demon she means to slay that she does not sense his presence in the tree on the hill above her. Beneath the armor, he can tell she is a priestess and her hair is long and dark, but he cannot smell her over the miasma the spider conjures and he cannot see her face beneath her extermination mask. When the spider demon is turned to dust under a single blow, he knows that she is as powerful—or perhaps more powerful—than he remembers, and the hope builds. But when her task is completed and she removes the mask, the face is not Kagome's. When the miasma begins to clear, her smell is all wrong.

He leaves before she even knows he was ever there.

XXX

More years pass. He is unsure precisely how many. Eventually he starts to hear stories about a jewel of power, a Shikon no Tama, and when he finds the priestess who is keeping it safe in a village of demon slayers, she is not Kagome, either. It is, appropriately enough, raining and the priestess has the jewel on a raised altar. He watches her pray for a few minutes before turning away.

Now he knows where the jewel is, and Sesshoumaru is not a liar, not even to himself. Not even when he wants to be. The jewel is tended by different hands and the years have stretched long and thin between when she was here and now. There is no hope that she is still alive. Hope freezes his heart in place and grief howls into rage around it. Here he is, head full of stories to tell her and questions to ask her and what's he supposed to do with all of that now that she's not here and never coming back? Kagome is dead and gone and dead and maybe she lived a happy life or maybe she didn't. Maybe she died young or maybe she died old. It doesn't matter. Dead is dead is dead is dead and dead means never again. He hates her for being dead. He hates her for her human weakness (because humans are weak, impossibly, stupidly weak). He hates her for leaving him on a rainy mountain after a fight with a god. He hates her for not saying goodbye. Mostly, though, he hates her for showing up in the first place.

He wants to swim to the bottom of the ocean and sit there until he drowns. He wants to go back to that human village and rip the throat out of that priestess for daring not to be her. He wants to throw his head back and howl and howl and howl until the grief rushes out of him like an angry spirit, but Sesshoumaru is a demon of his word. He turns away from the village and flies back to his father's castle. Just as he promised he would.

XXX

"You can't just mope forever," his father says. He standing in the doorway of Sesshoumaru's room. Sesshoumaru is staring out the window, watching the summer rain.

In the distance, thunder rumbles like it's told a funny joke.

"Why don't you go visit Kiwani? He says you haven't been to see him since," he knows better than to say Kagome's name. "you were looking for the jewel."

"Hnnn."

"Is that all you're going to say to me?"

"Hnnn."

He throws his arms up in frustration and storms out, promising darkly that he'll find a way to pull him out of his sour mood.

XXX

"You did WHAT?" his mother roars.

His father snarls in response and this is strange enough that Sesshoumaru walks down the hallway to find out why they're fighting.

"I am your alpha. You _will_ obey me."

"I am a mother before I am your pack mate. Stand down, Toga. You are acting like a fool."

When he enters the audience chamber he finds his parents, both sets of golden eyes bleeding red and his mother's fangs lengthening, a prone body on the ground between them. A prone _human_ body. Dressed in richly layered kimono and with dark, unruly hair. But the smell is all wrong. He doesn't know this one.

"What is the meaning of this?" He asks, and his parents start and look in his direction. His father's features smooth out, but his mother remains looking furious.

"Your _father_ is resorting to _kidnapping_!" She snarls. She flexes her claws. Her youki, generally kept so tightly under wraps that it's hardly a whisper around her, billows furiously.

"One human makes little difference. She comes from a large family. She will not be missed," says the demon lord defensively. "She will be happy here."

"Why is there a human female in our den?" Sesshoumaru asks as evenly as he can. He doesn't like human females. They bring up memories he is trying very hard to expunge. They are distasteful.

His father smiles, like he's trying to get him to eat something he doesn't like. He turns the unconscious human's face toward him.

Sesshoumaru bites down hard on the disappointment that her face is not Kagome's face, but he hadn't thought it would be. Her smell is all wrong.

"She's pretty, isn't she?" his father says. "She's twenty-one human years old and surprisingly unafraid of demons. She is also very talkative."

The cold truth of what his father is hinting at slithers down is spine. "You intend to replace one human girl with another?"

"She's very pretty," says his father again. "Just speak to her. Give her a chance."

"You were against me taking a human mate," he says slowly.

"Well, yes," his father says carefully, "But the centuries have been long and you have been unhappy. I do not like seeing you like this, Sesshoumaru. And besides, this one is royalty. If you must take one, this one is pleasing."

"You would have me take this one because she is a princess instead of a priestess," Sesshoumaru snarls. Acid pools at his fingertips as he considers killing the human female right here and now, just to prove his point, but his father steps protectively in front of the human female.

"If you do not want her," he snarls, "Then I will not force you to take her, but you will not harm her."

Both Sesshoumaru and his mother freeze at this. It's so unusual for Toga to defend anyone who is not a pack mate that they don't really know what to do next. They exchange a look that is boredom on the surface and alarm underneath.

"Toga, you're being ridiculous," his mother says. "You've kidnapped a _child_. And for what? A thoughtless attempt to right a wrong you made three hundred years ago?"

"She isn't a child," he says, which is also surprising. Toga has never bothered to learn much about humans. He allows them to live on his lands simply because it's more convenient than trying to get rid of them. "She's an adult in human years. Her parents were trying to arrange a marriage for her. They had no money to care for her any longer. She was not opposed to being taken."

"Do what you will," says Sesshoumaru, disgust dripping off of every word, "But I will have no part in your schemes." He turns sharply and stalks back to his room.

XXX

He thinks the issue is dead and buried when Izayoi is returned to her own kind a week later, but then his father begins to take long trips away from the castle, something he hasn't done since the conclusion of the war with the panther tribe. When he comes home, he stinks of human.

"Oh, let him have his fun," says his mother when Sesshoumaru protests the creation of magical swords to protect his human plaything. "He's taken quite a shining to the human." But when the Lord of the West is gone, the Lady of the West is the primary ruler, so Sesshoumaru knows her true reasons for encouraging her husband's dalliances.

XXX

Until the day, two years later, when the Inu no Taisho returns to his castle and announces that Izayoi will join their pack as his mate and second wife.

"You're bringing her here?" Asks the Lady of the West lightly. "Are you sure that is wise?"

"You opposed me taking a human mate and yet you will bring shame on our house in this way?"

"Do not be foolish, Toga," says the lady lightly, the sleeve of her kimono over her mouth. "I will indulge your romance but surely you know how _easy_ it would be for any would-be usurper to kill your human mate. However will you protect her when you are always so _busy_? Humans are so very fragile."

The threat in her words is so palpable that Toga snarls, his eyes bleeding red. "You will not harm Izayoi," he growls so loud that the building shakes.

"Me?" the demoness blinks innocently. "Whatever do you mean, dear?"

"Sesshoumaru," Toga turns to his son, "You will protect Izayoi when I am unable to do so. She will be your pack mate."

Rage unlike anything he has ever felt before pools coldly in his stomach. In that moment, he hates his father but more than that, he hates his stupid, weak, human lover, who has been given on a silver platter than which was denied to him and to Kagome centuries ago. He thinks about Kagome's brave, honest eyes. He thinks about Izayoi's frequent fits of homesick crying in the week she lived among them. But his mask is perfect. It betrays none of the emotion he feels. "Why?"

"Why?" his father seems baffled by the question. "If not for her sake and for mine, then for the sake of your brother."

The temperature in the room drops several more degrees. _A hanyou pup_ , Sesshoumaru thinks numbly. He thinks about Kagome. He thinks about his father's dark promises all those years ago. He thinks about forever and dust. He thinks about shame and family. His father is watching him carefully.

"Sesshoumaru," says Toga slowly, carefully, "If you do not do it for me or for your brother, then do it because it is the right thing to do. Izayoi has shown me how wrong I was to doubt the value in human and hanyou life. I have been a fool and know now that if Kagome were alive today I would welcome her into my pack with open arms. There is so much love that can be shared in this pack. We would all be stronger for it.

"She has borne you a pup?" his mother asks quietly.

"Not yet, but soon."

And Sesshoumaru finds his voice at last. "If I ever come upon your intended mate or your hanyou pup, I will kill them without a second thought."

With that, he turns on his heal and walks out of the room, out of the castle, out of the West. He stops only when he comes upon something he can kill. Demon or human, it hardly matters. He doesn't hate them, not really. Not Izayoi, not the hanyou pup, and not his father. But he cannot forgive the wretched injustice that Kagome is dead and a human who is not her could join his family forever. Because he cannot hate Izayoi, the hanyou, or his father, he chooses to hate humans instead. It is easier this way.

XXX

Two months later, Sesshoumaru follows his father's bloody trail to a beach far from his castle and as he talks to his (dying) father, he thinks about time; how there is never enough of it but always too much. It is the day before Shichiseki begins in his kingdom—now called Tanabata in some places—and wonders about how strange it is that he is still here, hundreds of years after Kagome is dead and gone and dust. He thinks about how strange it is that this is the very day, more years ago than he cares to think, that Kagome pulled herself out of that well and into his life. Her time in his life was practically nothing; less than a strike of lightning, barely even a here-and-gone summer storm. But like lightning or a storm, she struck seemingly at random, out of the blue, and bringing destruction in her wake. Here, now, he is still trying to stop the fire that she left behind.

The years stretch behind in and in front of him like an endless road. Kagome's face is so small in the distant past that sometimes he worries he's forgetting what she smelled like, what her laugh sounded like. He is an untethered kite. He is a boat without an anchor ripped out to sea. He will live and live and live even when there is no point in living any longer.

When his father asks if he has anything to protect, he answers honestly. And then he leaves.

XXX

He avoids going home for years. _It's amazing_ , he thinks, _how much time one can kill doing nothing_. He thinks he should probably honor his father's memory and go looking for the hanyou pup, since he's heard that Izayoi died, but he can't really bring himself to care one way or another about his half-brother.

He fights everything he can because there is no reason not to. He doesn't wait to hear begging or pleas. He doesn't want to get attached. Death is just death and it's not really any different from being alive, so he doesn't waste time thinking about it.

One day he has leveled an entire battlefield when an imp follows behind him, claiming to owe him a life debt.

He considers killing the imp, too, but on impulse he asks the little creature's name.

"Jaken, oh Sesshoumaru-sama!"

He can hear her voice so clearly that it hurts: _Who do you think I am—Jaken?_

 _Who is Jaken?_ he hears himself reply.

 _He's…a friend_.

He knows ghosts are real, of course, just as surely as he knows that she isn't one, but he can hear the dead talking, so he lets the imp travel with him. But he never asks him to stay. He's done asking people to stay.

XXX

Then the day comes that he catches a smell on the wind and he is off like a streak of light, leaving Jaken in the fast-receding distance.

He knows that smell—knows it so well that it feels like no time has passed at all—and he knows the power that thrums darkly against his skin, making promises for power. He doesn't stop to think about how many years it's been. He doesn't think about the other priestess praying over the jewel. He doesn't think about anything. Hope is so large that it has to be real.

But he slows as he catches another scent, too. This one is like his, like his father's, but different. As excited as he is, he's confused enough to wait.

What could his father's hanyou pup be doing with Kagome?

He curls his youki tightly around himself and approaches carefully, from downwind. He waits until his brother's scent recedes before he gets close.

When he does, he realizes that there's something slightly different in the scent and it's enough to keep him from revealing his presence, but when she turns toward him, her face is his undoing.

It's her. It's Kagome. Her expression is serious, but she's dressed just the way she was when he first met her and she carries a bow loosely in her right hand, a quiver of arrows is slung over one shoulder. She's even got the jewel on the string around her neck. She looks exactly as she should. There is no mistaking her. She has come back, or maybe she never really left.

Without another thought, he steps into the clearing. "Kagome," he says and he is amazed that his voice does not tremble.

She notches an arrow in her bow and takes aim at his heart. "Who are you, demon? What word did you speak to me?" she demands and her voice is cold.

She does not know him.

"What is your name?" he asks.

"Why does a demon want a Miko's name?" is the cold response.

And that's when he realizes that the smell is not Kagome's smell. It's similar, of course, similar enough to fool a nose that hopes for it to be identical, but not similar enough to fool him now that he's gotten used to it.

He is gone before she can say anything else and ruin any more memories.

XXX

A few days later, a thought occurs to him. _Has it been long enough that she could be reincarnated?_ He counts back the years. Five hundred, give or take. Perhaps that is long enough for her soul to go and come back.

So, he decides to go talk to the priestess, just to be sure.

This is how he learns that his father's hanyou pup and the not-Kagome miko are in love. Clumsily, foolishly, embarrassingly in love. And nothing is stopping them. No duty demands they separate. From what he overhears, he learns that even time will not keep them apart because the Miko (he refuses to use the proper name of one who looks so like Kagome but isn't Kagome) has discovered how to make a pure wish in a way Kagome never did: She's going to turn his father's hanyou pup into a human and they are going to live happily until they die.

And this is when he first comes to hate his half-brother. It is not, at first, for what he is, but for how he manages to have the precise thing that was denied to Sesshoumaru a lifetime ago.

XXX

Then Inuyasha gets stuck to a tree and now Sesshoumaru is all alone to bear the burden of their father's legacy. It's infuriating. Inuyasha got the Miko, killed the Miko, and then didn't even have to live with the consequences.

XXX

When he discovers the embarrassing blade his father has left for him, he goes to find his brother's inheritance.

This eventually leads him back to Inuyasha, who, infuriatingly, is awake again and running around with yet _another_ reincarnation of the Miko who will never be Kagome again. He isn't fooled by her similar scent and appearance this time. He isn't fooled by her strange way of speaking or unruly hair.

Perhaps it is cruel to disguise the demon as Izayoi, but Inuyasha's life is so comparatively easy that Sesshoumaru doesn't feel even remotely guilty.

And then Inuyasha calls the Miko's name. And it's Kagome.

Sesshoumaru keeps his mask firmly in place. He tells Jaken to kill the girl because he knows that even though she is not Kagome (and she will _never_ be Kagome. Not to him) he will not be able to kill her.

He doesn't know whether he's pleased or angry that she survives and survives and persists in surviving. He tries to tune out her voice while he fights with Inuyasha, but never can.

When she lets out a quiet, "Ooops," it's so familiar that he actually stops before dealing a finishing blow to the hanyou embarrassment and he turns to look at her.

She has pulled the sword from the stone in his father's tomb. His mind scrambles to make sense of it. Maybe it's because she's human. Maybe it's because she's a Miko. Maybe, though, maybe it's because she's almost Kagome.

He's angry at that. He's the angriest he's ever been, but he reins in his emotions so he doesn't change shape.

"Just who _are_ you?" he says, and he puts as much hatred as he can into the words, "Why were you able to draw out the sword?"

When she points the sword at him, she looks so similar to Kagome (the real one, the brave one) that the fury all but overcomes him completely. He's never wanted anything the way he wants to blot-out the not-Kagome, the almost-Kagome, the Kagome-too-late.

When he speaks to his brother, he hears the words as if from very far away and cannot stop the way that ring through his own mind like accusation. "Why protect her?" _And he remembers throwing himself between crazed Inari and Kagome, the knee-jerk reaction to keep her safe._ "Why let her go?" _And he remembers watching her disappear between the trees, hurt and anger warring for dominance on her expressive face and how she never promised to stay with him._ "Why love her?" _And he thinks about the Miko with the bow and no arrows, the girl insisting that he call her by her proper name, her hands on her hips as she yells at him for something that no longer seems important, her face while she sleeps, her laugh, her smell, Kagome, Kagome, Kagome._ And all of a sudden, he has a word for the way she has haunted him all these years. He has an answer to the question of why she has haunted him even though she is not a ghost. He loves her, and he is fool enough not to realize it for five hundred years; not until long after she is dead and gone and dead. And he can feel his heart thaw and freeze and break all over again and he is nearly undone right there, in the middle of his father's empty skeleton.

But then he catches himself. Inuyasha and the Miko are both watching him now and he's worried he's given himself away. He is exposing a weakness before his enemies and he's only got half of a heartbeat to set things right, so even though he's not—has never been—a liar, he says, "I certainly did not inherit from our father the feelings of compassion towards humans that you have…I don't pay any attention to such infinitely vulgar beings," and maybe he even means it, because since Kagome he hasn't. And then he tries to kill her. _Really_ tries to kill her. It's only a trick of fate that she survives.

And he loses the arm he used to try to strike her down.

XXX

Every time he meets her over the years, it is easier to see that she is not Kagome. She's younger. She's less polite. She's got no warmth for anyone but Inuyasha.

But as time goes on, and she ages, she begins to change back and he finds himself protecting her even though she isn't Kagome; even though she's just a human who has her name and face. He never calls her Kagome, never even thinks of her as Kagome in his mind, but he starts to feel like he has some duty to protect this newest incarnation. She still protects the jewel. She still gives her whole heart to everyone she meets. So, he still protects her.

XXX

He doesn't think there's anything special about the day he hears the distance scratching in the well. It's just one more demon that he'll eliminate to keep the girl and the jewel safe.

"Well? Whaddya want, Bastard?" calls the flippant voice of his father's hanyou pup.

He has years' worth of dealing with his foul brother, so the insult no longer causes any anger in him. "These are my lands. I may go where I please," he replies icily.

He is just preparing for the fight when the Miko says "Inuyasha!" in a tone so familiar that Sesshoumaru cannot stop his eyes from sliding over to her.

Something about this seems familiar, but he cannot put his finger on what it is. It's nibbling just at the edges of memory where time has worn them smooth.

The scratching in the well is getting louder, though, so he focuses on that, instead. "Woman," he says, because he refuses to use a name that doesn't belong to her. "Get away from that well."

She is so much like Kagome that he should have known better than to try to tell her what to do. She bristles visibly. "Why should Indo that? You don't get to tell me what to do just because you're a big scary demon."

But he recognizes the smell that's coming out of the well now and he knows what it means and how _dare_ the centipede demon come back from the past? Kagome killed her; Kagome destroyed her. For Mistress Centipede to be alive when Kagome is not is the worst injustice there has ever been. He lunges.

Then the Miko and the centipede demon are gone. Vanished into the well. The well that Kagome emerged from hundreds of years ago.

Sesshoumaru feels strangely far away even as Inuyasha lurches past him.

"Fuck! Kagome!"

 _He is wrong in the head_ , Sesshoumaru decides as Inuyasha jumps into the well. Like it will take him somewhere else if he just keeps trying. Like he isn't still bleeding through bandages from their most recent run-in with Naraku. _What's he doing jumping in with an injury like that? While it's raining, no less._ He listens Inuyasha scuffle around the bottom of the dry well for a few minutes and then he listens to him swear colorfully as he resurfaces. Jumps in again.

After two more rounds of jumping and resurfacing, Sesshoumaru finally realizes why this feels so familiar.

Eventually, he shakes enough of the strange dissociation to walk forward. "The well will not open now," he says flatly.

"How do you know? You don't know anything about this!"

But he does. He _does_ know. He's seen this happen before in a different time, with a different person. "The jewel is complete," and he thinks about the jewel in tiny pieces twice over now—once in Kagome's stories, and once now in not-Kagome's life. The parallels are uncanny. How had he missed it? Does history fold back on itself? Enact the same scenarios with different players as time stretches on? "It is no longer in two places at once." But maybe he is. Maybe he's finally lived long enough to watch things happen all over again.

"Fuck you! She got here in the first place, didn't she?"

And even _this_ makes sense as part of his new Repeated-History theory. Kagome was from somewhere else, too. Still, he's got to confirm it. "This is not her home?"

"Hey," Inuyasha's ears twitch and his eyes narrow. "How do you know any of this stuff?"

"Because," Sesshoumaru says it slowly because he knows how crazy it will sound, "That human—"

"Her name's _Kagome_."

But _Kagome_ _isn't_ her name. Kagome is a name that belongs to only one person—someone who lived and died hundreds of years ago. He will _not_ call this Miko Kagome. She is no more Kagome than the undead reincarnation his brother so clearly favors. If he were the type to glare, he would be glaring. He decides to continue as though Inuyasha never interrupted him. "Is not the first Shikon Miko I have known. While I do not know all the power the Shikon Jewel possesses, I am vaguely familiar with some of its abilities."

"Bullshit," says Inuyasha, who has apparently inherited the familial gift for sniffing out subterfuge, "There's something you're not saying. You bastard. If you know something about what's going on that you're not telling me, I'll beat it out of you."

And as much as Sesshoumaru would _love_ to give in to temptation and vent his frustrations with a fight, he can tell that he is on the cusp of something important, although he isn't sure yet what, exactly, it is. "That creature. Have you seen it before?"

"Madame Centipede? Pfft. Yeah. Kikyo killed her once like fifty years ago and then I killed her _again_ like four years back. Ugly bitch just doesn't want to stay dead."

There's no denying it now. The hanyou even knows the demon's name. "Hnnn."

"Why?"

"Because I have seen it before as well."

Inuyasha's eyes narrow, but before he can say anything, there's a jingling of a shakujo and then the priest puffs into view.

"Is everything alright?" he asks, looking between the brothers, "I felt a strong spiritual disturbance."

"Kagome's been taken by Madame Centipede and I can't get through the well!"

The monk's eyes widen. "Surely that cannot be! Does she have the means to fight Madame Centipede in her own time?"

This gives Sesshoumaru pause. "Her own time?" he says coolly. This does not fit in with his repeated-history theory. "Explain yourself, monk."

XXX

As she looks down at Sesshoumaru, trying to decide if she should allow Kuzunoha to try to send her into a future that needs her or if she should stay in a past that has no room for her, it hits her. She loves him. _Of course_ she does. How could she _not_? Maybe she always has. It started out small—smoke and half-formed opinions. A primordial soup confusing want and circumstance. The certainty of the past mingling with desperation for the future. She could have stopped it, if she had known what to watch out for, but by the time she saw the smoke, the flames had already eaten up her only escape and most of everything else. In the beginning, it could have been anything. In the end, it couldn't have been anything else.

And now, so near to the end, she isn't the Shikon Miko anymore. She's finally done one of the things she's always meant to do. The only thing left is to defeat Naraku. The only thing left is to see everyone she loves one more time.

"You must go, Kagome," Kuzunoha says, "No matter how much you care for him, you will only be in the way if you stay. This is not the time where you belong and your story is not yet at its end. You were always going to leave," and she says it with such certainty that Kagome doesn't even think to doubt her, "The only question has always been where you will go."

"Are you sure he'll be ok?" Kagome asks nervously as Kuzunoha slides the door shut behind her. They've been talking for half an hour. Kagome still doesn't think anything has been settled, but they're running out of time.

"Of course," says the kitsune with a small smile, "Seimei would have told me if he would have died here."

"But it's still raining out there. What if he gets sick?"

"A demon of that strength will not be done in by a little rain." When Kagome continues to stare at the wooden door, Kuzunoha's smile widens and grew gentler, "You truly care for him, don't you?"

"Oh," Kagome remembers the kiss they shared in the rain, her hand going unconsciously to her lips and her eyes glazing over.

"You could stay," Kuzunoha says, "But if you do, then this is where you must remain until the end of your days. There will be no moving forward. From all that you have told me, your future here will not be a long one and you still have an enemy you must defeat. Time, then, is your ally."

"You'll tell him, won't you?" Kagome asks nervously.

"Again, Kagome, and hopefully for the last time, _yes_. As soon as he wakes, I will tell him that you are waiting for him in the future. I will tell him about the well. I will tell him that, if you have, as you say, _really messed up the space-time continuum thing_ , then he should wait a thousand years and find you at the well house in modern-day Tokyo. I will tell him how to get there. I will tell him that you are sorry and that you are only going because you must defeat Naraku."

"Promise?"

"I promise it will be the first thing out of my mouth when he and I next speak." She crosses to the small altar and picks up the little mirror, once again whole. "Now then, before the power of the jewel fades completely." She raises the mirror. It grows in side until it's as big as a doorway. It shines with the same bright blue light that Kagome has seen every time she has traveled through the well for the last four years.

"I'll see you soon," she says, and then, gripping her bow tightly and summoning all the courage she can, she walks through it.

XXX

"Welcome back," says Kuzunoha.

Kagome steps out onto the wooden floor and opens her eyes. Kuzunoha is standing in front of her, holding the round, little mirror. The shrine around them appears exactly the same. Even the rhythm of the rain pounding against the roof seems unchanged.

"Kuzunoha," Kagome says, panic lacing her words, "Did it work? What year is it?"

The Kitsune smiles a wide, slow smile. "Kuzunoha," she echoes, "That is a name I have not heard in many, many years."

"What do you mean?" Kagome asks, clutching her bow to her chest.

"No one has used that name for me in quite some time. These days, everyone simply calls me Inari."

"I—oh, so it worked, then? You're the goddess of Fushimi Inari shrine?"

"Indeed I am. Come, my old friend, there is much that I should tell you."

XXX

"So the Miko is a time traveler," Sesshoumaru says flatly. "This well connects the present with the distant future where she lives."

Miroku lets out a relieved sigh. "Yes," he says, "More or less."

"Hnnn."

Then he gets to his feet.

"Alright, bastard," says the hanyou, "We told you what we know. Now it's your turn. How did you know about the centipede demon?"

"I think," he says slowly, "That there is a chance I have met Kagome before. There is someone I must ask before I can be certain." and he's alright walking away.

"Oi! Hold up! If it's about Kagome, we're coming too!"

XXX

"It has been nearly five hundred years since I last saw you," begins Kuzunoha once Kagome is settled on the hard floor. "It worked even better than I thought it would have."

Kagome sags in relief. "Oh, thank goodness. I'm so glad that worked!"

"As am I, my young friend. I sure there is much you would like to discuss, but first, there is something I must tell you."

"What is it? Is everything alright?"

Kuzunoha is silent for a long time and then she says, "Did you know that a god's abilities are tempered by a few specific hindrances?"

"Oh no. I didn't. Why? What's wrong?"

"As you know, gods cannot leave their grounds."

"Oh," Kagome thinks about this for a minute and then said, "Yeah. But that's fine, isn't it?"

"You see," Kuzunoha continues slowly, "I had assumed that Sesshoumaru would enter my shrine. If not as soon as he awoke, then shortly thereafter."

"Ok," dread pools in Kagome's stomach. "So, it took a while to get him the message," she says slowly. "Right?"

"Indeed."

She swallows. Her mouth is dry. "How long did it take, exactly?"

"Until he came to see me?"

Kagome nods.

"I am still waiting."

XXX

It takes a few short sentences to explain where he is going but then it takes the rest of the day to leave.

"If he's got any info about Kagome, I'm coming!" Inuyasha insists. And then, once Inuyasha insists on going, the monk must go too, so he rouses the demon slayer to ask if she'll watch the kitsune child, but as soon as she's appraised of the situation, she refuses to be left behind and then the kitsune overhears that Kagome is missing and cries until Inuyasha rolls his eyes and says that he can go, too.

Sesshoumaru insists that they leave to collect Jaken, Rin, and Ah-Un before anyone else decides to join their travelling group.

By the time this is done, Inuyasha insists that it's too dark to travel and Rin yawns widely as if to prove his point.

XXX

"Are you _sure_ you want to do this, Kagome?" Kuzunoha asks.

Kagome nods and shoulders her pack. It's very heavy. She's got enough rice and tea to keep her fed for weeks and a white fox curls around her feet. It turns out that having the favor of the patron deity of agriculture and foxes has a lot of perks. "Positive. I want to talk to him as soon as possible." She doesn't know which is more troubling: The idea that everything is different from how she left it or the idea that everything is exactly the same. She doesn't know what she'll do if Sesshoumaru is angry at her for leaving. She doesn't know what she'll do if he stares through her like she's never mattered at all.

Kuzunoha nods solemnly. "My fox will guide you. It will take you a month to reach Tokyo. May the journey be easy."

Kagome gives the goddess a quick hug and then sets off.

XXX

"Sesshoumaru, we can't go any farther today," it is Miroku who says it, but it is Inuyasha glaring daggers at him.

"We have not gone far enough," Sesshoumaru responds, not bothering to stop.

"Well, no, but we aren't going to reach the coast in a day! Inuyasha and Sango are still injured and the children need to rest."

He doesn't want to stop, but Rin has nodded off and nearly toppled off of Ah-Un twice. Behind her, Kagome's kitsune has his tail curled around his nose. He considers what it means to be a responsible parent. He thinks about the gentle care Kagome took with Seimei all those years ago.

"Make the fire," he says to Jaken, "I will hunt."

XXX

After four days, Kagome is _bored_ of walking. The white fox that travels with her can't talk and she doesn't think it would have much to say even if it could. It rains on and off. Her feet her. She feels like she's been walking forever and then she wonders what _forever_ must feel like for Sesshoumaru. She thinks about the glow of his eyes in the dark, the press of his lips against hers. It's hardly been half a week for her since the storm in Heian-kyo, but it feels like a lifetime ago. What, then, must it feel like for Sesshoumaru? He has lived and lived and lived. Has he taken a demoness as a mate? Does he even remember meeting her? Does he remember that they were friends?

She wishes he were here now. She thinks of all the things she wants to say to him. She thinks she might even forgive him for asking her to stay as his side-fling as he moves on with his life. She doesn't regret leaving, but she does regret not saying goodbye. Five hundred years is a really long time.

She'll just have to make him remember, then.

So after five days, she starts reciting what she's going to say when she finds him. She'll tell him about watching fireworks the night before the start of Tanabata. She'll tell him about visiting the hatchery and how awful the panther king was. She'll tell him everything she can think of.

A blush flowers across her cheeks. She doesn't know how she'll tell him that they kissed, but maybe, she can jog his memory some other way.

XXX

It takes two weeks to reach the border of his father's lands and another two days after that to reach where he means to go. He's not used to coming this way on foot and although the path is clear, it is unfamiliar.

"Hey," Inuyasha says, coming up alongside him. Strangely enough, he does not mind the hanyou's company. They are united now in their desire to find out where Kagome has gone and when or if she might return. They don't speak of her absence and importance in their lives, but Sesshoumaru finds that they don't have to. Unlike humans, his half-brother leans more heavily on what is done than what is said. "Why're you so tense?"

"Hnnn," he replies.

"I thought you said this guy would know something."

"He will," Sesshoumaru said.

Inuyasha's ears swivel in confusion.

"I find him…trying."

"How so?" is the inevitable response.

"You will see."

XXX

"Beautiful creature!" sings out a voice as subtle as a sword to the side of the head.

Sesshoumaru braces for impact but it never comes. The streak of red, green, and white collides with Inuyasha instead.

"A dazzling beauty of such noble heritage! Surely I must have done something wonderful in a previous life to merit your presence here today!"

"What the fuck?!" The hanyou barks out. "Who the hell is this freak!?"

At the sound of the decidedly masculine voice, the multicolored hair seems to deflate.

"Kiwani," Sesshoumaru says flatly.

The god perks up at the sound of his own name. "Oh! Sesshoumaru-sama!" and then his eyes narrow. "Do you have any idea how long it's been since your last visit?"

"This is Inuyasha," he says and then, because the last few weeks have shown him more about his half-brother than the last hundred and fifty years combined, he adds, "The young Lord of the West."

Kiwani just gives him a knowing smile and then grows serious. "About five hundred years, I'd say, give or take. That's quite a long time, but it's nice to see that you haven't changed too much. Now, Sesshoumaru," he says slowly, "I'm still very upset with you. It's been much too long. But no one can say I'm not a kind and forgiving god, so I'll let you ask two questions." His black eyes are shining. "Ask well."

"What are—"

Kiwani holds up a silencing hand. "Wait your turn, young Lord of the West. I'll answer all your questions in time. But first, Sesshoumaru. Two questions. Ask them well."

And there is an infinite number of things he could say, so many things that he needs to know, but there is one question that fights its way ahead of the rest.

"Who carries a bow but no arrows?"

Kiwani smiles, then, wide and true, and Sesshoumaru knows that he has done exactly what was expected of him. He has passed a test he did not even know he faced. A tension he did not even know was there drains out of the very air.

"A girl who will not quiver."

And the answer is so simple, so _right_ , that it tells him everything he needs to know. She is here, then, his brave Kagome, with eyes that flash when she's angry and a heart large enough to fit the whole world. Anything else that he needs to know, he can ask her himself.

"And now for your second question, Lord of the West."

"Where can I find her?"

"To the south and east, halfway between Kyoto and Edo."

"What the—" begins Inuyasha, and Sesshoumaru is out the door before he even finishes the question.

"Now then," says the land god, turning his attention to the remaining party members, "I think it's time that I filled all of you in, shall I?"

XXX

It's raining. Again. Kagome holds her pack over her head and tries to follow the path the little white fox cuts through the underbrush, but it isn't easy. She's wet, she's cold, she's tired, and she is _so sick_ of walking.

"What kind of storm system _is_ this?" she mutters darkly to herself, and freezes mid-step, one foot still in the air.

There's something—something _strong_ —barreling toward her at speed. She drops her pack and fumbles her bow into position, holding it like a baseball bat as the demon roars between the trees and stops in front of her. She hopes she has enough room to swing it—

And she can't believe what she's seeing.

It's him, really him, and he's staring at her, maybe half a dozen steps in front of her. He's breathing heavily, like he's just run a great distance, but she doesn't know how far that might be. His expression is closed, like he's regarding someone he isn't sure he knows, and all of a sudden, she knows he is. He doesn't know if it's really her any more than she trusts that it's really him.

"Sesshoumaru?" she says tentatively. She takes a step forward. She lowers her bow.

"Tell me your name," he says it softly, like if he speaks too loudly she'll vanish.

She smiles at him, truly smiles, and he feels like it's the first time he's seen a sunrise after five hundred years of darkness. "My name," she says, just as softly, just as serious, "Is Kagome Higurashi. I'm from the future but I am most recently coming from the past.

Eventually, he takes a step nearer to her. "You are cold," he observes and then he drapes his pelt across her shoulders.

"Thanks," she says, and she knows she's blushing and smiling too-wide, but she can't stop either reaction.

He inclines his head.

She looks at him, then. Really looks at him. It's only been a few days for her, but five hundred years have changed him, she realizes with a sinking heart. The lines of his face are harder and, although he looks no older, there is a certain cruelty in his expressionless stare that was not there when they last spoke. She wonders, then, if this is still the same demon who she knew from the past.

"Kagome," he says, tearing her from her thoughts. "I have spent five hundred long years thinking you were dead and gone."

She's preparing an apology when he continues to speak.

"In that time, I have done much thinking." He takes a steadying breath and then, because he is neither a liar or a coward, he says, "Forgive me for taking you as a prisoner to the West."

"Oh, I didn't think I was—"

He holds up his hand to silence her. "Forgive me for valuing the jewel above your happiness."

"Well, you were—"

"Forgive me for never using your proper name. Forgive me for suggesting that I would take one beside you as a mate. Forgive me for wasting so much time. Forgive me, too, for attempting to kill you so often when I found you again. Forgive me for being blind to your return to my life. Humans rely on speech as much as action so forgive me for not telling you how beautiful you—"

She slams a hand over his mouth. She laughs shakily. "You," she says, "Are dangerous."

And then he's right in front of her, and his large hand are tracing the lines of her face as if sight and smell and sound alone are not enough to confirm her identity. His hand tangles in her damp hair, his claws scrape against her scalp. This is when she remembers that now, he only has one hand. She aches for the loss in a way she's never done before. As if sensing her sadness, he pulls back, his eyes trying to read her fluctuating mood in the lines of her face.

She can see him taking deep breaths and, acting on impulse, she stands on tip toes, puts a hand on either of his cheeks, and brings his face down until they are nose-to-nose, just the way she saw his mother do hundreds of years and only days ago. He stills at once, completely and totally. If it weren't for the even sound of his breathing, she would doubt that he was still alive.

But then he presses his forehead to hers and then his lips are crashing down over hers.

It's a different kiss from the last one they shared, but just as wet. She can feel the longing in the press of his mouth over hers; she can trace the delicious edges of desire when his hand presses her more firmly against his chest, spread possessively across the small of her back. Her hands are reaching up too, winding into his perfect hair, pulling him closer, closer but never close enough.

The white fox watches for a few more moments, and then slinks off between the trees to tell its mistress that Kagome has found what she was looking for and that she is safe.

In the distance, the thunder rolls.

XXX

They don't go immediately back to Kiwani's shrine. Kagome has a brilliant idea and Sesshoumaru, who can still hardly believe that she has returned, just nods, holds out his hand, and says, "Come."

Thousands of years of instinct roar in pride and pleasure when she takes his hand without a word.

XXX

"So you're telling me that my old man did _all_ that by himself?" Inuyasha has been listening to Kiwani's stories all afternoon and Miroku listens calmly in the corner, content to see his friend so happy.

Outside the shrine, Sango, who cannot see Kiwani because she is neither holy nor a lord, sits with the children. The storm has blown itself out and turned into a beautiful evening. She is watching the sun set over the distant bay, staining the distant beach pink and purple. She hopes they'll have time to walk down along the shore before they leave the Western lands. She's never been on this side of the mountains before so she hopes they'll have time to explore before they leave.

This is where she is sitting when Rin lets out a happy whoop and announces, "Sesshoumaru is coming back!"

When Sango stands and cranes her neck to catch sight of the distant, shimmering cloud, it pulls on her injuries and lances pain through her still-healing ribs, but all human discomfort is forgotten when she catches sight of a dark head of hair. She lets out a cheer of her own, loud and happy enough to match Rin's. "And he's got Kagome with him!"

XXX

"Did you think about Seimei," Kagome says and shifts so that she is sitting more comfortably between Sesshoumaru's legs, her back against his chest. "When you took her in, I mean."

Sesshoumaru runs his claws through her hair, detangling it and marveling at how soft it is. "Hnnn," he says and then, when she nudges him with her elbow, he adds, "The thought had crossed my mind," he admits. He cannot remember a time when he has ever felt more content. He is leaning against the wall of Kiwani's shrine, watching his retainer chase Rin around, shouting orders. The girl in question is weaving together a massive chain out of the armfuls of sunflowers Kagome brought, aided by Sango and Shippo. She wants to make a chain long enough to cover all of Kiwani's front gate. From where he sits, Kagome nestled against him, he can hear Kiwani and Miroku debating something in the heart of the shrine.

"I think it's great," muses Kagome, "I think the world needs more positive human-demon interactions. It's better for everyone.

"Hnn," rumbles Sesshoumaru, pressing his nose into the crook of her neck, "More hanyou, perhaps."

"Sesshoumaru!" Kagome says, her cheeks turning red as she pushes his face away. She glances anxiously at Inuyasha.

"Keh," says Inuyasha, who leans against the wall at his side, arms folded across his chest, peaceful despite the scowl on his face, "Best revenge I could ever get," he says, and the scowl breaks into a wide grin. "Give the bastard a whole pack full o' hanyou brats, Kagome!"

"Hnn," Sesshoumaru agrees, "One in the pack is not enough."

"Who're—" begins Inuyasha, but then recognition eclipses confusion on his expressive face. He hides his happiness with a scowl and looks away. "Keh."

XXX

As the day fades easily into night and Shippo and Rin abandon flower chaining in favor of chasing fireflies, Kagome whispers in Sesshoumaru's ear, "I love you."

He stills for a long moment and then presses his lips against the shell of her ear and whispers back, "Kagome, I have loved you for five hundred years without end. Never once in all those years since you last walked beside me have I ever hoped on having you love me back. Thank you."

She presses a chaste kiss against his cheek and says, "You could have just said _I love you too_. That would have been enough."

And then she gets to her feet and, "Shippo! Rin!" she calls. "Who wants to hear a story?"

As the children rush toward Kagome, Inuyasha sidles over to him again and says, "We still have to find Naraku."

"Hnnn. It will be easier now that we will work as one pack."

Inuyasha thinks about this for a minute and then says, "There's no guarantee she'll be ok, you know. Now that the well's closed for good, she won't be able to get back to her family, so even we do alright in the fight, she might not, you know, be _ok_."

"She will see her family again," Sesshoumaru say with certainty. "I have mourned her passing for five hundred years. I will not mourn her passing again."

"So you'll take her for a mate? A _proper_ mate?" His tone is hard. He is worried.

"Why are you concerned?" Sesshoumaru asks evenly.

"Look, buddy. She's my best friend. I'd do anything for her. As far as I know, up until about a month ago, you didn't give two shits about her. Hell, you even tried to kill her once or twice. Now, since it turns out she's like your long-lost girlfriend or something, you expect me to just hand her over? Not happening."

Across the clearing, Sango has settled in with Kirara at her back and Shippo and Rin vying for space in her lap. Kagome is trying without success to settle them in for story time.

Sesshoumaru considers this for a long moment before finally saying, "Your argument has merit."

"It does?!" Inuyasha seems surprised.

"Hnnn," he agrees, nodding solemnly, "And I will spend many years atoning for my blindness. I will bear that burden with dignity."

"Well," sniffs his half-brother, "I guess that'll do. For now. But I'll be watching you, so you'd best not fuck up."

"Hnn," says Sesshoumaru, "I look forward to it."

Ah-Un is grazing off on one side of the shrine. Jaken, Miroku, and Kiwani have wandered across the clearing to join Sango and the children in a half-circle around Kagome. The two dog brothers watch from their wall as Kagome takes a deep breath and begins, "My mother, who was the first kitsune, told me this…"

Tomorrow, they will set out to find Naraku. After that, Kagome wants to go to Kyoto to speak at length with Kuzunoha and Sesshoumaru wants to present Kagome as his proper mate to his mother. They will argue about this. Starting tomorrow, many things will happen. Stories will begin and end. They will lose some friends and gain some others. Life will go on much the way it always has. It will stretch before them and behind them like an unending road and sometimes they will be happy and sometimes they will be sad. Many, many things will happen.

But for now, the stars twinkle high above them and sometimes, that can be enough.


End file.
